Kodiak bear
An average adult male measures in length, and stands tall at the shoulder. The largest recorded wild male weighed , and had a hind foot measurement of . A large male Kodiak bear stands up to tall at the shoulder, when it is standing on all four legs. When standing fully upright on its hind legs, a large male could reach a height of . The largest verified size for a captive Kodiak bear was for a specimen that lived at the Dakota Zoo in Bismarck, North Dakota. Nicknamed "Clyde," he weighed when he died in June 1987 at the age of 22. According to zoo director Terry Lincoln, Clyde probably weighed close to a year earlier. He still had a fat layer of when he died.
Brown bear
The largest subspecies are the Kodiak bear ("U. a. middendorffi") and the questionably-distinct peninsular or coastal brown bear ("U. a. gyas"). Also the extinct California grizzly bear ("U. a. californicus") was rather large. Once mature, the typical female Kodiak bear can range in body mass from and from sexual maturity onward males range from . According to the "Guinness Book of World Records" the average male Kodiak bear is in total length (head-to-tail) and has a shoulder height of . When averaged between their spring low and fall high weights from both localities, males from Kodiak island and coastal Alaska weighed from with a mean body mass of while the same figures in females were with a mean body mass of . 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 . The reported mean adult body masses for both sexes of the polar bear are very similar to the peninsular giant and Kodiak bears. Due to their roughly corresponding body sizes, the two subtypes and the species can both legitimately be considered the largest living member of the bear family Ursidae and largest extant terrestrial carnivores. The largest widely-accepted size for a wild Kodiak bear, as well as for a brown bear, was for a bear killed in English Bay on Kodiak Island in fall 1894 as several measurements were made of this bear, including a body mass of , and a hind foot and a voucher skull were examined and verified by the "Guinness Book of World Records". Claims have been made of larger brown bears, but these appear to be poorly documented and unverified and some, even if recited by reputable authors, may be dubious hunters' claims.