The Scanderan cave bear is the largest of all bear races living on the Scanderan continent and it can easily reach sizes of up to four meters making them one of the largest mammals on the continent as well and only being outsized by whales and mammoths, both of which it is known to hunt.

That said so is it not as aggressive to humans as a polar bear and it only tends to outright attack during autumn or spring when it is trying to hunt for food or protect it's young.

Etymology

Scanderan Cave Bear
	File:180px-Direbear.jpg
	The dreaded cave bear.
Conservation status
	; Near Threatened (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Ursidae
Genus:	Ursus
Species:	U.Major
Binomial name
	Ursus major; Hylfred Görenssen, 1785
	File:Bear habitat.png
	Habitat

The name of Scanderan Cave Bear or "Grottbjairn" in Imerian traces back to the old Scanderan word "hellirbjorn" meaning "Cave bear" oddly enough. It is debated that since Cave Bears often lives in the largest caves and stays in their proximity the whole year so were they named "cave bears" in the old times which most scientists agrees makes a certain degree of sense.

History

Just like Batbeasts so have bears had a somewhat disliked reputation amongst the Scanderan peoples and tales of old said that bears were once sentient just like the batbeasts used to be. However in the war of Light and shadow did they just like the batbeasts join forces with the Wharen and to pay for their crimes were they transformed into mere animals and bears were forever marked by their curse so that all that would taste their flesh would be stricken down.

In the modern era is it debated that this myth arose from the fact that eating the liver of a polar bear is fatal to almost every sentient species in Scandera with the exception of the absolute largest races of trolls that only suffers severe discomforts like the skin peeling off, blindness, vomiting and fainting (all symptoms displayed by smaller species when digesting only small amounts of liver making it a matter of the liver not being large enough to kill the trolls rather than any real immunity).

Despite that however so do bears often have a much more sympathetic roll in the histories they take part of and they are often seen as trying to repent their old shame and their fighting in furious rage have historically been used as a great example for warriors all over Scandera and especially the dreaded berserkers took that philosophy to heart and dressed themselves in the skins of bears when they charged into battle too blinded by rage to think or act rationally. This means when bears are part of stories are they often trying to help the heroes and are very rarely villains after the Imerian migrations, before that age though so can one commonly find bears taking the part of either henchmen or villains in their own right.

Bears and especially cave bears are also very important in martial related magic and it is said that adding ground up bones from a cave bear to the molten steel when forging a sword will give the sword an extremely good quality and give the spirit of the sword the fury of a bear in battle.

Taxonomy

The cave bear was officially designated as a race of bears by the famous Imerian biologist Hylfred Görenssen when he wrote his large books about the Scanderan wildlife. Especially the first volume "di marklevande varelserna" or "the creatures of the ground" took great care to distinguish between the smaller brown bear species and the larger cave bear species. As a bear was it named Ursa major or Greater bear by Hylfred and it is one of the few times his latin at least seems to approach somewhat acceptable standards rather than being downright grammatically incorrect or just him adding "ius" at the end of words or making the name an Imeiran pun.

The bear is however divided up into two sub species, northern and southern cave bear. The northern cave bear tends to be much larger than the southern one and the smaller species is often only 3/4ths of the total size of their larger northern brothers. However so do the southern species tend to be more aggressive.

Anatomy and health

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Size compared to a human

The Scanderan Cave bear is very similar to it's smaller cousins and is all but identical to the brown bear. The one thing that seperates it from it's cousins is however it's size as the cave bear can reach heights of four meters when standing on all four and can almost be twice that size when standing on it's rear legs. The beast is also very heavy and can weigh up to 1080 kilos, a weight that makes is also one of the heavier species of animals in Scandera as it's two rival predators, wyverns and dragons, are surprisingly light for their size to allow them to fly.

Reproduction

Scanderan cave bears mates in spring and the cubs are often born during the cold winter months when the mother is in hibernation. Most commonly does a female give birth to up to three cubs which she then care for herself as the males simply mates once before they move on looking for new lands to stay for the rest of the year.

Diet

The Scanderan cave bear is oddly enough a Omnivore and happily eats large amounts of grass, berries, and tree leaves just as often as it hunts down large prey like mammoths, dragons, wyverns, myskoxes, bisons, elks, and giant aurochs. The cave bear is also a great fisher that is known to be able to catch large amount of salmon but have also been known to swim out and hunt whales and dolphines on the coasts when it spots them.

Behaviour

The great cave bear is not particularly aggressive as it lacks many natural predators and it has even been known to be more curious in humans rather than aggressive. However during autumn and spring when it is either known to hunt for food to prepare for hibernation during winter or protecting it's young so can it be highly aggressive, also when faced with it's natural foes like dragons, rotbestar, horsewolves or wyverns so can the bear also be aggressive and fights over killed prey is common in the northern iceplains.

Just like most Scanderan large animals so do the cave bear also hybernate in a cave when winter come. The females are very territorial and often spends their entire lives in the first cave they moved in, in when they left their mother. Males on the other hand just stays for the winter and then moves on when spring comes in search for females to mate with before they settles down in the summer.