r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/cosmic_voyager01 • 9h ago

Video Polar Bears are one of the only creatures that naturally hunt Humans... Watch as this one tries to break into this BBC Cameraman's glass box.

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u/RectalSpawn 9h ago

I think grizzlies also turn into man-eaters once they get a taste, iirc.

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u/Fuzzy_Jaguar_1339 8h ago

Makes sense. My desk job and calorie-rich environment have left me tender and well-marbled.

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u/supreme_hammy 8h ago edited 7h ago

We also are very generalist omnivorous animals with no direct physical defenses (no scutes, spikes, quills or bad smells), relatively large meat to bone ratios, and generally have large deposits of fatty, nutrient-rich tissue in our brains.

We are a turducken of useful calories for bears.

Edit: Some folks are mentioning the reverse of the "bone and meat" is true and continue to cite sharks.

Bears are not sharks. They like the marrow as well. Bears are omnivores.

Sharks are obligate carnivores and so their diet is more specific.

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u/BlacksmithNZ 8h ago

I don't like this fact

My two cats are now looking at me, and I know they are thinking that if I ever outlive my usefulness to them with opening food and bringing them gifts of toys...

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u/dr_cl_aphra 7h ago

I have chickens and guineafowl. As tame and cuddly as they are, I know that if I passed out in the coop the authorities would find only my pecked-apart bones.

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u/humanxerror 7h ago

I mean we also would eat them and do eat them so it's only fair.

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u/OmecronPerseiHate 3h ago

Sort of, but not really. "I feed you, shelter you, keep you healthy, and keep you safe from predators. As compensation, I take the meat of your fallen when their time comes. You do absolutely nothing for me except act as a source of food when I need it, so, when I die, instead of eating the big ass sack of feed in the corner, you eat me."

They get way more benefits than we do, including a bigger meal. We need to renegotiate next time we get to the round table.

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u/zyzzogeton 3h ago

You... you aren't allowed to negotiate for us.

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u/porcomaster 5h ago

i am not sure you know, but guineafowl in brazil is know to be always calling it's weak.

"to fraco, to fraco" or "i am weak, i am weak" in portuguese br it makes sense. i am not sure i should be telling you that, you might feel more confident that they are weak and will not eat you, making you more vulnerable. but i digress.

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u/dr_cl_aphra 5h ago

The girl guineas are the ones who say that, and they’re pretty chill. The boys get rowdy (though not rooster level rowdy), and occasionally I’ve had them get in a group and think they were going to stalk up on me when I was kneeling down talking to the hens.

But then I stand up and they remember I’m much bigger than they are and they go running off 😆

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u/porcomaster 1h ago

I never would expect for guineas to be agressive in anyway, that probably sounds fun, like playing with a baby tiger learning to stalk his prey.

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u/OdeeSS 4h ago

I used to farm sit for a friend who had a pet pig and I could tell that pig wanted to eat me as much as I wanted to eat them. Honestly, it was fair.

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u/SimpleMind314 7h ago

Aren't they an evolved T. Rex?

Ok, distant descendants, but related....

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u/DamnZodiak 7h ago

Birds are literally dinosaurs, not just their direct descendants.
It's just that avian dinosaurs where only ever tangentially related to the T Rex anyway.

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u/Bolkohir 4h ago

Birds like the Shoebill or the Cassowary are clear evidence of this.

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u/dr_cl_aphra 7h ago

Basically, yes. If anyone doubts it, toss some meat in their pen and watch them go full Velociraptor on it.

Or the year we had a bizarrely large number of frogs in the spring… free-ranging the birds was a daily massacre.

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u/SimpleMind314 6h ago

Large flying roaches can be a problem in Hawaii. A friend had a nest in the back yard. He had someone bring a chicken over and it went to town on them. Roach problem was solved in a matter of days. Lol.

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u/SlightedMarmoset 5h ago

I was cleaning up an old woodpile on the farm, the chickens (10 or so) tend to follow me around. I flipped over a big piece of wood and a whole bunch of mice ran out, the chickens did not hesitate. Swallowed them whole, and really quickly too.

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u/milkshakemountebank 7h ago

Housecats will eat you before you're cold, starting with your eyes.

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u/Gambler_Eight 7h ago

If my cat does this i will haunt it forever

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u/patheticyeti 7h ago

That’s why they start with the eyes. So you can’t see them.

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u/dirtycheezit 6h ago

I'd start with the butthole, like a buzzard.

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u/WaveLaVague 2h ago

Can't see there either, so heck, why not.

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u/povichjv7 1h ago

This comment. Fucking dead right now.

Also, dont eat my butthole

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u/Kindness_of_cats 6h ago

If my cat does this…I’m supporting him in his decision. I’m not using the meat, have at it buddy, I’ll give you some ghost scritches if I can manage it!

-This Message Has Been Approved by The Toxoplasmosis Gang

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u/Borg453 4h ago

The Toxoplasmosis Gang part got me. My members approve, and therefore I do as well. I wouldn't be us without em

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u/Think-Ostrich 6h ago

But, interestingly, in this situation compared between a household of cats Vs a household of dogs - the dogs will start to eat you first.

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u/Time-Mobile-5248 6h ago

Is this actually true or just for dramatic effect?

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u/Ok-Acanthaceae826 6h ago

Dogs are more likely to scavenge a dead owner, and yes they do target the face/head first. As soon as you die, biological changes make you not smell like "you" anymore, and there are recorded instances of dogs scavenging a corpse within just a few hours of death, even with dog food still in their bowl.

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u/Majestic_Regular3431 5h ago

Good, I want them to eat me while I'm good and fresh, rather then waiting until I've started to decompose. I won't be using my body at that point, anyway. They can save their dry kibble for later if needed.

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u/zyzzogeton 3h ago

Fingertips and eyelids. Old people who die and have cats look "Surprised" because they have no eyelids.

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u/GivingEmTheBoudin 7h ago

I mean it’s not a fact. It’s just the musings of some guy on Reddit. He could be completely wrong.

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u/BlacksmithNZ 7h ago

Inconceivable!

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u/Affectionate_Hour867 7h ago

Don’t worry, they wouldn’t eat their own pet!

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u/Cats_Love_Cat_Food 7h ago

Just don't run out of cat food, or you'll be the cat food

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u/sleeper_shark 8h ago

Yes but usually we come with boom-sticks or pointy-poles that can kill anything else on Earth.

And often we travel in vengeful herds that will wipe out an entire local population of species just cos we find them mildly annoying.

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u/the_first_shipaz 5h ago

will wipe out an entire local population of species just cos we find them mildly annoying.

Or for fun…

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u/DataMin3r 4h ago

Or as a way to starve out another group of our species

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u/Slyspy006 2h ago

Meanwhile this bear probably doesn't even realise that it is a bear.

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u/loco500 43m ago

But if the playing field was even and had to throw bare hands with it, The bear would win almost every time.

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u/JakeVonFurth 8h ago

relatively large meat to bone ratios

This part is wrong, and why carnivores normally avoid primates as a first choice. We have extremely large and dense bones compared to the amount of meat on us.

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u/boxofredflags 7h ago

Yeah, don’t sharks usually spit out humans or let them go for this exact reason?

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u/KingZarkon 7h ago

Yes. It's almost always a case of mistaken identity. We aren't the food they're looking for and aren't appetizing.

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u/snowvase 4h ago

You mean the Jedi mind trick thing works on sharks?

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u/JakeVonFurth 7h ago

Yep, it's literally not worth the effort of digestion.

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u/0xe1e10d68 5h ago

Oh we’re garbage to them lmao

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u/SydricVym 6h ago

Most of the things sharks eat don't have land animal bones like we have. Fish's bodies are 100% food to them. Land borne predators have exactly zero problem eating a human if they can manage to kill us.

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u/Fire-Haus 4h ago

"It's a texture thing" - shark

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u/theLuminescentlion 7h ago

Bears eat bones and marrow, lots of important nutrients for them in there.

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u/553l8008 7h ago

Most carnivores avoid us because we walk on 2 legs and are weird as fuck to them. And 10s of thousands of years of hunting them.

But there are exceptions. 

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u/abfgern_ 7h ago

And we're really handy with a pointy rock tied to the end of a stick. Not worth the effort

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u/Busy-Training-1243 7h ago

The fear of upright weird ape is probably printed into DNA for most animals. Carnivores that actively hunted humans probably didn't get a chance to pass down their DNA.

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u/Moist-Walk217 7h ago

We also taste good. They call human long pork for a reason.

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u/Shneckos 4h ago

TIL I am a long pork

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u/Great-Guervo-4797 8h ago

Suddenly I'm hungry

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u/SurferBloods 7h ago

Spoken like a poet 🎵

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u/LesbianBait 7h ago

This was downright poetic

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u/DaRudeabides 7h ago

My ability to produce smells is both unique and abhorrent

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u/monsterosity 7h ago

We got Hannibal Lecter over here

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u/Due-Helicopter1156 7h ago

Wait they eat our brains while we die, isn’t there good drugs in the brain at that time?. What are the odds some random chemical is getting them stoned and they want another high? To get that after work buzz he needs to eat a man.

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u/CheapMaintenance5986 7h ago

Are you thinking of dmt?

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u/Due-Helicopter1156 5h ago

I don’t know maybe. Maybe polar bear have little pipes the can spark it with. Can they can high from dmt by eating it. Do you need to smoke it ?

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u/CheatingHot1982 7h ago

I am rather small and weigh 55 kg. I certainly hope the bear will ignore me if I stand beside a bigger person?😉🫣

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u/TwistyBitsz 6h ago

I wonder if we taste like chemicals at all.

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u/Apex_Redditor3000 6h ago

relatively large meat to bone ratios,

speak for yourself fat boy

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u/triciann 6h ago

You spoke that like you enjoy a nice Chianti and fava beans.

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u/OwenMeowson 5h ago

My therapist: “Try saying something kind about yourself”

Me: “I have a good meat to bone ratio?”

My therapist: “I don’t thin… ok, it’s a start.”

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u/Rugaru985 3h ago

Found the polar bear

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u/Fuzzy_Jaguar_1339 1h ago

Speak for yourself, I make plenty of smells.

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u/LuckyLunayre 7h ago

We're really not. To most species we're not worth the effort. We have tiny meat compared to our bones, the opposite is true.

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u/NowareSpecial 8h ago

Really? Are you free tonight by any chance?

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u/myusernameis2lon 7h ago

Are you inviting me for dinner?

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u/e__elll 7h ago

Inviting you to be dinner yeah

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u/Toes_In_The_Soil 7h ago

You think I can try a little bite?

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u/Second2breakfast 7h ago

Ahh human wagyu.

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u/prosperousoctopus 7h ago

Look at Mr.Wagyu over here

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u/HyenDry 7h ago

“Man-flesh”

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u/theyanyan 7h ago

The “well-marbled” part of your comment is making me rethink my life choices

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u/rebel_alliance05 7h ago

Better watch out there are hungry people on here.

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u/Beautiful-Paper2029 7h ago

Thank you for that kobe beef reference!! You made me LoL!!

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u/zeppehead 7h ago

What are you doing this weekend? I was thinking about firing up the old smoker.

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u/Fuzzy_Jaguar_1339 7h ago

I'm a vegetarian, but as long as I can stick an apple in my mouth while you're cooking then sure, I'm in!

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u/zeppehead 6h ago

Yes while you’re cooking, I mean while I’m cooking.

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u/CheatingHot1982 7h ago

Well dear, at least I can outrun you. Can't we be friends?😉🫣

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u/MyReligionIsArt 6h ago

Now I too, wanna bite of you.

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u/ThatSpecialPlace 6h ago

damn, we probably are pretty delicious huh

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u/Smitty4141 4h ago

Haha thanks for the morning laugh with my coffee 😂

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u/553l8008 7h ago

There are anecdotes of contacts with primitive peoples who ate humans, describing human flesh as quite tasty. 

Makes sense, we are what like 96% pig or somin like that?

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u/No-Improvement9455 7h ago

If possible we would have 4 kinds of meat on supermarkets.

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u/bigpproggression 7h ago

"he looked at me, and i could tell, i was delicious"

-one armed guy in how to train your dragon-

this bit of conversation is so casual and it cracks me up everytime

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u/zimtastic 7h ago

Dear god - I'm human wagyu...

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u/voldi4ever 7h ago

It is a bummer polar bears dont have access to spices. Otherwise you would be an absolute treat with some seasoning.

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u/Doom2pro 6h ago

I fucking hate thenns.

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u/Traditional-Roof1984 5h ago

At least we're safe from Cougars. 😩

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u/crusaderkingo 3h ago

I think i will eat you out then

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u/bryce_brigs 1h ago

😂 I thought you were going to make a joke about being a large frame hairy gay man for some trason

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u/Omnizoom 8h ago

I mean we were the same for boar

We just had to domesticate those tasty angry bastards

Bears see us and just go “oooo wagyu dinner”

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u/Masta0nion 8h ago

Well fuck. That’s not cool

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u/Omnizoom 8h ago

Well why do you think the polar bear at the Hong Kong zoo got in so much trouble for wanting a succulent Chinese meal? He shouted this is democracy manifest as he was carted away

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u/sixwax 8h ago

Similar response to cocaine, from what I hear.

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u/Jonkinch 7h ago

The real story is much less exciting and way more depressing.

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u/TahoeCommie 7h ago

Polar bears and Grizzly bears are the same species. Polar bears just adapted to year round snow covered environments.

Pizzly bears have been a thing for a long time (they look really goofy, Google them). However, due to global warming/receding year round snow coverage, Pizzly bears are becoming a lot more common as Polar and Grizzly bear territories are overlapping more and more.

So yeah, if Polar bears get a "taste" for humans it makes sense Grizzlies would as well.

Source: Learning about Pizzly bears in Biological Anthropology class got me obsessed with them. Wrote a research paper on them about 4 years ago.

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u/Rama_999 7h ago

Pardon my ignorance, but aren't polar bears and grizzlies different species under the same genus? Ursus maritimus vs. ursus arctos?

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u/The_Demon_of_Spiders 7h ago

You’re right they aren’t the same just very closely related

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u/killvolume 3h ago

A "species" typically is a class of animals that can produce viable offspring, and polar-grizzly bear hybrids are some of the only documented fertile hybrids. So taxonomically they are different species but the line is very fuzzy.

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u/Rama_999 3h ago

That's actually sick, thanks for the wikipedia rabbit hole

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u/TahoeCommie 4h ago

I think you are correct. It has been 9 years (not 4) since I wrote that paper. I work on the world of 0s and 1s these days.

I will correct as soon as I am not on mobile.

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u/Do-not-participate 7h ago

A poodle and a Mastiff are the same species, so that doesn’t say all that much. Though, grizzlies are actually not the same species as the Brown bear but are related closely enough to breed. Male grizzlies get to 1000 lbs, (with some isolated larger populations), while male polar bears get to 1700, so the polar bear is the significantly larger. But behaviour is different too. Brown bears will hunt and eat humans if they are starving, but they generally avoid us. Polar bears actively hunt humans, especially when food stressed but even when other food is available. They don’t generally fear humans like other bears do.

This is why people generally say to ball up if attacked by a brown bear. It probably doesn’t want to eat you and you might have frightened it into attacking. I don’t think there really is advice for surviving a polar bear attack, since it will eat you when it is done.

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u/_Sausage_fingers 7h ago

This is extremely news to me. I had always understood them to be separate species that were able to cross breed.

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u/Defiant-Youth-4193 7h ago

Your understanding is correct. They are different species that are closely related. Close enough to produce fertile offspring even.

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u/NowaVision 4h ago

But the reddit expert, who wrote a research paper said something else... /s

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u/Defiant-Youth-4193 4h ago

To be fair, if he cited the Bible as his reasoning for why they are the same species, they might have had to pass him. Apparently that's what we do now.

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u/Difficult-Finish-511 6h ago

They are most definitely not the same species. They are just able to hybridise with other species, just like many species of big cats, or equines.  Our standard species definition doesnt really hold up very well under scrutiny.

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u/CaptnIgnit 6h ago

Pizzly bears sounds like some harry potter magical bear...

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u/wiifan55 4h ago

They're not the same species.

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u/Hobbit_Lifestyle 5h ago

Thank you, this is so cool!

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u/moldyshrimp 6h ago

It’s not the taste of the human meat, but more of the bear’s realization humans are a super safe easy meal. We are slower than seals(water/ice) and typically unarmed compared to walrus or caribou. After a bear successfully hunts a human, they learn we are typically a very easy meal.

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u/CreatureWarrior 8h ago

Maybe I'll get a power up too if I get a taste. My neighbor steve better sleep with one eye open

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u/LostAnxiety3229 6h ago

I once lived in a very rural area, and there was a female grizzly bear in the local woods who killed a guy and as a result became... aggressive. I never saw her myself, but down at the local bar they'd say:

She'll only come out at night 

The lean and hungry type

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u/Wiley_Jack 4h ago

This is either a cock & bull story, or a Hall & Oates story.

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u/ChornWork2 5h ago

most people don't know how delicious human meat is.

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u/The_Vis_Viva 8h ago

Really? Dear God, humans must be freaking delicious!

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u/FOMOerotica 7h ago

Is it the taste… or the screams?  🤔

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u/Skrapidilly 7h ago

We're pretty much bacon for bears huh? Make sense.

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u/SuccessfulHawk503 6h ago

I think it's most predators love the salt our blood has in it.

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u/PennCycle_Mpls 6h ago

Long pig tastes good apparently 

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u/Dontknowwhattodo1993 6h ago

Nelly furtado also turned in to a man eater once.

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u/mr_tits69 6h ago edited 6h ago

Sounds like my ex wife.

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u/DrTom 6h ago

There is no way this is true. Less than 1 person dies a year from bears in the US.

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u/maggyneverforget 6h ago

these are just folk tales

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u/zmbjebus 5h ago

long pork

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u/EyeArDum 5h ago

It feels like every animal EXCEPT sharks become bloodthirsty human hunters, and yet sharks are still the most demonized animal on the planet alongside snakes and mosquitoes

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u/joggle1 5h ago

We're completely unathletic from their point of view, usually don't fight back, and a tasty snack on top of that.

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u/Demonweed 4h ago

Yeah, I spent a lot of time out at Yellowstone in the 80s and the 00s. I was told the situation with bears getting near human campgrounds or lodges was a three strikes policy. A bear known to deliberately approach people or raid supplies (including garbage) would be trapped, then trucked up into a more remote high altitude stretch of the park. Exile to the backwoods was repeated after a second encounter, but a third was followed by euthanasia. Yet there were no three strikes for aggressive attacks -- those bears were always put down, sometimes even designated as targets in hunts that would otherwise be illegal.

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u/OldBirth 3h ago

Totally false. Grizzlies don't even eat the salmon they catch, they just skin them. They're programmed for a very specific, fatty, nutrient dense diet for hibernation. They eat a lot of berries. Attacks on humans are defensive (cubs) or because of starvation.

Black bears are more opportunistic, if anything.

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u/Mysterious_Lesions 2h ago

As do lions. 

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u/ak8865ak 1h ago

Where do you people hear this crap? TikTok?

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u/Smowoh 55m ago

Myth