What is the scientific name of the brown bear?

The scientific name of the brown bear is Ursus arctos. In zoological naming, Ursus is the genus and arctos is the species epithet, together forming the binomial name used for the species.

Carl Linnaeus formally described the brown bear as Ursus arctos in the 1758 edition of Systema Naturae, a foundational work in biological classification. The name is linguistically repetitive: Ursus is Latin for “bear,” while arctos comes from Ancient Greek and also means “bear.”

Brown bears range across parts of Eurasia and North America and include familiar regional forms such as the grizzly bear and Kodiak bear. These are generally treated as subspecies or populations of Ursus arctos, not separate species. Their fur can vary from cream and reddish tones to very dark brown, so color alone is not a reliable way to identify them.

A common mix-up is confusing the brown bear’s scientific name with those of other species: the American black bear is Ursus americanus, the polar bear is Ursus maritimus, and the Asian black bear is Ursus thibetanus.