| 1 | Bear claws |
Imagine that Freddy Krueger was not only real, but a whole race of Freddy Kruegers existed. And imagine that they were 800 pound monsters with brown fur who didn’t bother with the whole dream-invading nonsense. That’s what a nervous silverback gorilla faces the moment he steps into battle on a windy Alaskan mountaintop or a circular clearing in the jungle (the location for the fight hasn’t been determined yet).
It’s easy to understand a bear’s massive size from photographs, but its claws are often underestimated. They are each 4 inches long, primarily designed for digging roots, but also fighting. A brown bear’s claws are like 4 kitchen knives strapped to their fingers.
Meanwhile, gorillas have only fingernails like us. Their fingers are more designed for picking fruits from the jungle. Bears pick berries, certainly, but use their flexible prehensile lips instead. Their claws are fully fitted weapons of mass destruction which a gorilla would have to duck and dodge with 100% accuracy if he’s going to stand a chance. Just one impact of a bear’s claws could finish the gorilla, ripping his skin open.
Furthermore, gorillas haven’t evolved to withstand claws. They’re more focussed on dodging poisonous snakes and neon-coloured frogs. Leopard attacks happen, but they’re too rare to exert evolutionary pressure. The bear would just pick the gorilla off, and get back to its salmon stream.
| 2 | Bear blubber |
Part of the reason for those overcocky gorilla supporters is that bears look fat and lazy from a distance. They are fat, yes, but this is only hibernation fuel. Beneath the blubber is massive, insane knots of muscle, but the blubber itself provides a 5 inch thick armour against attack. No matter how strong a gorilla is, its assaults would just bounce off the bear. The gorilla’s only hope would be relentlessness, to inflict so many smaller wounds that the bear finally gives up.
Gorillas are the opposite. There’s no thick layer of blubber defending them. A bear would only have to land one accurate slash with its claws to rip the gorilla open. Like all primates, they have very thin skin which bleeds easily, and this blood loss would mean that a single bear paw wound could cause the gorilla to gradually lose energy. The moment that happens, the gorilla would lose its edge in the nimbleness stakes, and with its smaller size, nimbleness is what a gorilla relies on. If a bear got tired, it could still do massive damage with a clumsy swipe or stumble.
Gorillas may have such a fearsome bite that the mere sight of their skull triggers superstitious nightmares, but how would that work in a practical situation? For an instant kill, the gorilla would have to pierce the bear’s neck with a 100% accurate shot. If it misses by an inch, then Samuel Silverback is well and truly trapped. He’s in the enemy’s lair, and a million sledgehammer bear strikes would immediately rain down on his back.
| 3 | Gorillas are smarter |
But wait a minute. What the bear fans may underestimate is the advantage a gorilla’s intelligence gives it. People are still debating whether dolphins and chimpanzees are more intelligent, but gorillas are another contender – it’s just less visible intelligence, focussed towards social structures rather than war.
These days, gorillas are smart enough to disarm poaching traps in the jungle. While brown bears are smart enough to move a plastic bucket in order to access a tasty treat hanging from a wire, and arguably one of the smartest large mammals, no biologist would seriously argue that their intelligence approaches a gorilla, let alone outstrips them.
Koko the gorilla, a good friend of Robin Williams, could paint, play music and turn on the TV herself to watch cartoons. She was skilful at sign language, and in a fight, a gorilla might quickly identify the weaknesses of its lumbering opponent. It would identify that its sharp fangs would be best placed in its neck, or might deploy tools like a nearby tree log, which would be as light as feather for the gorilla when swung in the grizzly’s face.
A gorilla might have the wits to manipulate its surroundings, like crossing a log bridge over a river which it knows is too heavy for a bear. Bears are far from dumb brutes, but in a fight, their only modes are wrestle, bite and smash – there’s no 3D thinking. A bear’s one advantage is superior tree climbing skills, but neither are great at it, and the gorilla would have the wisdom not to attempt it.
If the two contenders were duelling on a rocky plain, only the gorilla would have the smarts to notice a nearby boulder, pick it up, and hurl it at the bear’s head. When you look a gorilla in the eye, your gut instinct tells you that there’s a lot going on in there.
| 4 | Brute gorilla strength |
Furthermore, the gorilla has more strength in relation to its body size than any animal other than insects, such as the leafcutter ant. Gorillas are perfectly capable of lifting cars, and while the strongest human alive can bench press 750 pounds, a gorilla maxes out at 4000 pounds. That’s an insane display of strength.
Sure, grizzly bears have been seen rolling boulders out of the way on mountainsides. They can upturn garbage dumpsters to get at the sweet, sweet garbage juice inside, whereas it would take two people to merely budge it, but the gorilla is an evolutionary wonder. Its density of fast twitch muscle fibres is second to none, the type of muscle tissue most significantly linked to strength.
A bear’s muscle mass is larger, but less effective per square inch than a gorilla’s. Imagine what a straight punch to a bear’s face would do. Even human beings have scared bears away with a punch on the nose before (and great white sharks). It could knock the bear out of the fight right there, causing it to flee into the forest holding its nose. Not to mention that a gorilla can pick up heavy items like boulders and hurl them at the bear. A bear would struggle to capture a gorilla in its bear grip to deliver the finishing move. The gorilla would burst outwards with an almighty display of strength.
Being huge doesn’t mean that a bear is perfect in every way. Usain Bolt, for example, is the fastest human being of all time, with a top recorded speed of 27.8mph. Yet even he wouldn’t claim to be the strongest human, or have the hardest punch. Biologists once found that when not angered, gorillas are 4.5-9 times stronger than a human, while a bear is just 2.5-4 times stronger. Gorillas are a uniquely strong animal where normal rules don’t apply.
| 5 | Bite force |
Not even the most avid bear fan can deny that the silverback gorilla has a stronger bite force than an adult male grizzly. PSI is the commonly accepted measurement for the amount of force a jawbone can exert on its prey. Humans clock in at 162, while the Nile crocodile has the highest on earth, at 5000. A brown bear is respectable at 1150 PSI, which is sufficient to bite through a tree branch, a frying pan, and thick human bones. However, a silverback gorilla just edges it out at 1300PSI, which is the strongest in the primate kingdom.
You can’t underestimate the impact this would have on a fight. A gorilla would only have to sink its teeth into a brown bear’s paw for it to yelp in pain and instantly lose 50% of its stomach for the fight. If it got several nips all over the bear’s body, it would be in big trouble.
There’s no doubt that an accurate strike to the bear’s jugular vein would end its life, as the gorilla’s teeth are easily long and sharp enough. In fact, bearing its fangs in a war pose might be enough to spook the bear itself, giving the gorilla a psychological advantage. As for the bear, its jaws are strong, but a gorilla’s forearm is strong. A focussed gorilla with reflexes at the top of its game could grab an approaching bear jaw, put its feet in the perfect position for leverage, and calmly wrench the bear’s jaws apart again. The bear would stagger back, shocked at this rare challenge.
Just look at their sharp fangs. They don’t need them for eating meat. No, they need them for fighting! Bears are no exception – if they stray into the gorilla’s jungle domain, then there’s a colourful gorilla target on their back. A bear might be blubbery, but a gorilla’s fangs are 2 inches long.
| 6 | Bears are lumbering and clumsy |
What if the bear tried the same jaw wrenching trick itself? With the bear’s body structure, it would never be able to do the same thing regardless of strength, because its forelimbs have the wrong positioning. They’re designed for swiping, digging and wrestling. They’re too stiff compared to a gorilla’s flexible arms, which have a lot in common with our own.
This is a wider advantage for the gorilla too. Look at a gorilla’s arms – they are very similar to humans, just furrier and thicker. This gives them far more possibilities in a battle. A bear can swipe, but it cannot punch you in the face. A bear trying to punch is like King Charles trying to rap. No matter how hard it tries, it just can’t do it, but a gorilla can make use of sticks, rocks, and punches. A particularly skilled gorilla could even run at a swinging vine, clutch on to it, before swinging back in the other direction and kicking the bear in the head like Tarzan.
Meanwhile, a bear lacks the body structure. Gorillas are also more nimble, with a lower centre of gravity. They could dodge plenty of a bear’s blows, get around a bear’s back. Just picture humans taking on a woolly mammoth. We may have had spears, but the concept of a lumbering beast whose body is overexposed remains true with the gorilla.
Part of it is perception. People in the USA or Canada have a non-stop series of bear mauling stories every year to reinforce their reputation as a ferocious animals. Bears have been getting free PR for years, and they’re not objecting. Meanwhile, gorillas are the underdog, waiting in the jungle with a wry smile, knowing they’ll be underestimated when the day comes.
Bears may be killing machines, but they feel fear in a battle, the urge to retreat. Remember that they’re more scared of you than you are of them! Bears don’t have an on-off fighting switch, and an educated gorilla could exploit this, delivering tactical blows to play with the bear’s emotions.
| 7 | Bears have a predatory instinct |
Bears are born with decent predatory instincts, and hone them further with 2-3 years of training by their mother. They watch her hunt massive elk and moose, and wait by the dens of arctic ground squirrels.
Meanwhile, gorilla babies are not taught by their mothers to hunt. Their training involves picking the correct fruit, social skills, and tricks for their nomadic lifestyle. A gorilla is no slouch at defensive fighting, the fang bearing display you see, but the only meat gorillas eat is insects crawling along leaves. When faced with a 1000 pound grizzly bear, he won’t have a clue what to do. There’s no automatic instinct to go for the neck with his teeth, the gorilla’s best choice, or the ability to sense weakness in its prey and press home the advantage.
In fact, if a bear was bleeding and staggering around the rainforest, the gorilla probably wouldn’t sense it. He might keep baring his teeth in a show of aggression, while if a bear was winning, it would undoubtedly sense it, and activate an all out final flurry of bear limbs and teeth which the gorilla couldn’t withstand.
Bears skills are also well honed by fighting each other for the best salmon spots, and they’ve learned to sense fear and submission. A bear is a born killing machine. What gorillas don’t realise is that bears are part of the evolutionary order of carnivora, like wolves and seals. Until 20 million years ago, they were almost completely meat eating, until primitive bears decided to try berries for the first time, but the old evolutionary layer of hunting instincts remain.
A fight in the wild lasts 1-2 minutes, but each second matters, and a brown bear would cram much more predator instinct into those seconds than a silverback gorilla. Gorillas are only separated by humans on the evolutionary tree by 10 million years. We may like meat, but when was the last time you saw a cow and suddenly slipped into a hyperfocused tunnel vision state where you knew precisely which body parts to strike to kill it?
| 8 | Hard facts |
One hard fact that gorillas lovers cannot deny, no matter how hard they try, is that they can’t see in the dark. Gorillas are primates and they have similar night vision to us – they barely see in the dark at all. Bears, on the other hand, have a layer which re-reflects the minute quantities of light entering their eyes, multiplying its strength several times over. Dogs also have this, and it’s why both dogs and bears’ eyes turn white when photographed at night.
The myth that bears have poor eyesight is just that, a myth. If the battle was taking place with the sun setting, as all great battles should, and a wispy cloud went in front of the sun for a minute, the darkness could spook the gorilla.
A bear’s speed is also inarguable. Bears can reach 35mph with ease, and 40mph is possible for freaky specimens which we’ve never observed. Meanwhile, gorillas top out at 20-25mph. Their half-walking, half standing body structure isn’t well suited to running. In fact, with Usain Bolt reaching 27mph, gorillas are slower than human beings.
The rule of this battle is a fight to the death – one animal must die – but if a bear ran away to get a breather, the gorilla wouldn’t be able to stop it. A gorilla would be caught up effortlessly, before receiving a slash on the back. It would have to commit itself to the big bear battle once and for all, whereas the bear can be more flexible in its approach.
With adrenaline surging through the gorilla’s body nonstop, its reactions might start to go haywire, costing it the highly precise punches and bites which would be essential for victory. It seems like all the odds are stacked against the gorilla. Billy bear can be clumsy and still win, while Samuel Silverback needs everything to go right. He can’t afford any mistakes.
| 9 | Bears aren’t unbeatable! |
Despite everything we’ve said, one fact is undeniable in this debate – bears have been witnessed being killed by smaller animals in the wild. Bears are tough cookies, undeniably, but there’s a perception from Hollywood that they’re unstoppable beasts whose eyes glow red and who’ll remember you if you dare to throw a frying pan at them, and deliberately come back for revenge the very second you blow out the candles on your birthday cake next year.
The fact is that a Siberian brown bear weighs 600 pounds on average, while a male Siberian tiger averages at 450 pounds. Overall, they are reasonably evenly matched, yet the tiger emerges victorious in a slightly majority of cases, 65% versus 35% for the bear in one study. Why? Because Siberian tigers know how to kill. This is the angle that the gorilla would go for, intelligently using the advantages it possesses instead of brute size and strength.
Some say that as herbivores, they lack the predatory instinct of bears, but if they’re so meek and incapable of fighting, what’s the point in all that muscle? Bear fanatics might say it’s purely for intimidation and that a gorilla hasn’t been in a fight in its life, but gorillas are capable of taking out lions in the African savannah.
It’s often pointed out that leopards prey on gorillas. This is true; a 1965 book called One Traveller’s Africa has a quote saying “A terrible black leopard has appeared and killed 4 gorillas – four that we know of“. But this is partly because gorillas sleep on the floor like humans in their beds. They also have poor night vision, meaning that most leopard kills are sneaky pounces rather than the 1 on 1 fight we’re discussing.
| 10 | The gorilla would be swatted far away |
Overall though, putting a brown bear against a gorilla is like an AK-47 versus a water pistol. It’s like a dog versus a tabby cat. Gorillas are powerful animals, but bears are in another league. We might admire their strength, but thinking they can beat brown bears isn’t just wishful thinking – it’s delusion. A bear is so overpowered that if they fought 100 times, the gorilla wouldn’t win once.
Even if gorillas are freakishly strong, they’re far lighter at 400 pounds, and a bear’s strength would be more than sufficient to swat the gorilla aside and send it flying towards a tree. The size also gives the bear an advantage without trying. How is a gorilla supposed to get to a bear’s neck to inflict the killer blow when they stand 8-10 feet tall and a gorilla is only the height of a normal human? A gorilla would have to climb up the bear’s body like a ladder, before realising that it lacks the predatory instincts of a Siberian tiger, which evolved with one purpose in mind: to pierce its prey’s jugular vein in a single pounce. It would be hard for a gorilla to get close.
Here, the gorilla’s intelligence would work against him, because he would see those claws and instantly feel a spike of fear. It would make him very cautious to approach the bear.
Even when he made his play, aiming for the bear’s neck with his teeth, his body would be screaming to flee and he would be torn between the two instincts rather than moving in full attacking flow. His head wouldn’t be fully in the game.
In the wild, many victories in battle are achieved with a final burst of no holds barred aggression, and the gorilla wouldn’t be able to access those higher gears. A bear can rip the bark cleanly from a tree just by scratching an itch on its back.
Verdict: the brown bear wins.
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