Subspecies of brown bear

[21] Its fur varies from pale cream to dark brown, but always with a distinctively darker, nearly black tone at the paws and a yellowish tinge at the tip of each hair.

[18][20][22][23][24] Brown bear size, most often measured in body mass, is highly variable and is correlated to extent of food access.

[44][45][46] The brown bear in northern Europe (i.e., Scandinavia, eastern Europe, western Russia), Yellowstone National Park or interior Alaska seasonally weigh on average between 115 and 360 kg (254 and 794 lb), from mean low adult female weights in spring to male bear mean high weights in fall.

Brown bears from the Yukon Delta, interior British Columbia, Jasper National Park and southern Europe (i.e., Spain, the Balkans) can weigh from 55 to 175 kg (121 to 386 lb) on average.

The enclosed taiga habitat of Jasper presumably is sub-optimal foraging habitat for grizzlies, requiring them to range widely and feed sparsely, thus reducing body weights and putting bears at risk of starvation, while in surfaces areas in the tundra and prairie are apparently ideal for feeding.

[52] A gradual diminishment in body size is noted in grizzly bears from the sub-Arctic zone, from the Brooks Range to the Mackenzie Mountains, presumably because food becomes much sparser in such regions, although perhaps the most northerly recorded grizzly bears ever, in the Northwest Territories, was a large and healthy male weighing 320 kg (710 lb), more than twice as much as an average male weighs near the Arctic Circle.

[60] Exceptionally large inland specimens have been reported in several parts of North America, Europe, Russia and even Hokkaido.

The largest recorded grizzlies from Yellowstone and Washington both weighed approximately 500 kg (1,100 lb) and Eastern European bears have been weighed in Slovakia and Bulgaria of up to 400 kg (880 lb), about double the average weight for male bears in these regions.

[63] Even in the nominate subspecies, size increases in the eastern limits, with mature male bears in Arkhangelsk Oblast and Bashkortostan commonly exceeding 300 kg (660 lb).

[67][68] A similarly diminished size has been reported in East Siberian brown bears from Yakutia, as even adult males average around 145 kg (320 lb), thus about 40% less than the average weight of male bears of this subtype from central Siberia and the Chukchi Peninsula.

[45][82][83][84][85] By the time they reach or exceed eight to nine years of age, male Kodiak bears tend to be much larger than newly mature six-year-old males, potentially tripling their average weight within three years' time, and can expect to average between 360 and 545 kg (794 and 1,202 lb).