Talk:Ursus maritimus tyrannus

Picture/etc
Hello, i'm french, i have made some changes about this page because we don't really know what ursus maritimus tyrannus looked like, for a simple reason: we have only one ulna, it's too fragmentary to give an accurate description...I think we must be careful about the dimensions of this bear. I also deleted the image which is a bit fanciful. --C T (talk) 15:57, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The reason your edits were reverted is because they weren't sourced. Can you link to more information about the "Andy Currant" brown bear claim? ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 16:37, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
 * How is the image "fanciful"? It's pretty much as conservative as it could be, a generic brown bear of intermediate colour. FunkMonk (talk) 17:19, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Well i think there is a serious problem with this page, it is completely conjectural about the dimensions...There are absolutely no scientific data which states that ursus maritimus tyrannus weighted 1200kg and was about 4 meters on the hind legs...We just know, according to the ulna that this bear was huge. About Andy Currant, i personnally sent him an email to have more informations about this bear, because he has worked on it many years ago. He told me that this bear was huge but that no body mass evaluation was made. And you can find relatively easily on internet the proof that Andy Currant has worked on this animal... So, with intellectual honesty you should delete the section about the mass and the dimensions... Erikhaugen, i sourced my contributions: On evolution and fossil mammals, Bjorn Kurten. --C T (talk) 17:54, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
 * There's not much more than basic info on Google scholar... FunkMonk (talk) 18:22, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Erikhaugen, i sourced my contributions—The problem is that you added copyrighted text, not that you added unsourced material. It's a legal issue, not one of academic integrity. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 16:33, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

My contributions were more serious but of course if you prefer a page which is not scientifically verified... i understand why many people tell that wikipedia is not a credible source...--C T (talk) 18:37, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I deleted your section about description, it is not sourced and there is no scientific proof about your claim :-). Wikipedia is not for kids who write anything without checking!--C T (talk)

I agree with CT, a whole article for a bear subspecies known from a single bone, really? on top of that it isn't even a valid species, according to Ingólfsson & Wiig (2008) which the article cites only to get the location of the bone, says that it is now considered to just be a bone of Ursus arctos, stripping this article of any reason it had to exist, and the bear isn't even that big, why is Wikipedia citing a website that doesn't even cite sources itself? 1.2 tonnes is complete imagination. Mike.BRZ (talk) 22:03, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Not valid? What is it instead? As for the image, was just fooling around with an old skecth I'd made of a polar bear in a Zoo. FunkMonk (talk) 22:38, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The Ingólfsson & Wiig (2008) designated no official synonymies, stating only that a communication with Andy Currant of the Natural History Museum–London shows Mr current having the personal belief that the Kew Bridge specimen was of a large brown bear. Until an official paper is published synonymizing U. m. tyrranus it is still officially valid.-- Kev min  § 23:33, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I jumped the gun, you're right Kevmin, FunkMonk, it hasn't been officially synonymized yet. Funkmonk, I have nothing against your drawing, I said nothing against it. What I disagree with is that mass "estimate", and some other things, the site bearsoftheworld.net doesn't cite any sources itself so I don't think we should reference it, specially since that ulna will actually belong to a bear with a skeletal height of 1.3m, it's not 1 tonne "material" (I'm not suggesting we should add this, I know its original research on my part). My point is that all we know of this subspecies is a sinlge ulna, the only thing we can say about it is who named it, where it was found, how old it is and how big it is (the ulna, that's it), everything else on the article is general polar bear evolution topics already covered on the polar bear article. I think we should at least remove the 1.2 tonne claim. Mike.BRZ (talk) 04:20, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

This article is a masterpiece of extrapolation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.137.100.34 (talk) 20:43, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Well and good
Okay, so you don't want to state information that's not verifiable...but I don't see why the article can't state how might the bear might have been. You come to read an article about a frickin' giant polar bear, the first thing you wonder is "how giant?" And it's kind of disappointing when the page doesn't say anything other than apparently, they found a 19-inch ulna bone, and it's pretty big. How big? At the very least, maybe you could condescend to give the size of an average polar bear ulna, so the reader can make some slight comparison for himself. Are we talking a bone that's a few INCHES longer than your typical polar bear ulna? Is it TWICE as long as a typical bone? What? It's kind of a big difference. It's impossible to make even the slightest mental comparison when you are given absolutely no information for context, and it's kind of frustrating. Am I supposed to go and Google "length of a polar bear ulna" and hope for results if I want to get any id3ea of HOW "giant" a polar bear we're talking here?

In any case, if a capable person has written a paper projecting the likely size and weight of the animal based on the size of the bone (and they very likely have, since that's a pretty basic assumption to make, and is very common when dealing with fossilized animals), then I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be included on Wikipedia. If it's published information from a competent source, then it should be allowed, whether you agree with the persons conclusion or not. As it stands, this article is basically worthless..45Colt 02:14, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I hope the edit I made is to your liking, the bone is a few inches longer than typical, also there actually isn't any paper estimating the likely size of the owner of the bone, I've searched a lot for something like that, the bone seems to have been forgotten since its original description and it wasn't until 2008 that another publication mentioned it and only then it became internet famous. Mike.BRZ (talk) 20:53, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Rename this page?
Given that an unpublished study said that it may have actually been a brown bear, should we rename this page to the Kew Bridge bear or are there any sources that refute the idea that it was a brown bear? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarsath3 (talk • contribs) 02:49, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
 * We should wait until the paper comes out, as, Wikipedia is not a crystalball.--Mr Fink (talk) 02:58, 21 January 2019 (UTC)