Arctotherium angustidens vs Titanoboa cerrejonensis

[poseidon]

Arctotherium angustidens 

Arctotherium is an extinct genus of the Pleistocene South American short-faced bears within Ursidae. Their ancestors migrated from North America to South America during the Great American Interchange, following the formation of the Isthmus of Panama during the late Pliocene. Arctotherium was named by Hermann Burmeister in 1879. A specimen of A. angustidens from Buenos Aires shows an individual estimated, using the humerus, to weigh between 983 and 2,042 kg (2,167 and 4,502 lb), though the authors consider the upper limit as improbable and say that 1,588 to 1,749 kg (3,501 to 3,856 lb) is more likely. An estimated standing height for Arctotherium is 3.4–4.3 metres (11–14 ft). It would still make the genus the largest bear ever found and contender for the largest carnivorous land mammal known.


Titanoboa cerrejonensis 

Titanoboa is an extinct genus of very large snakes that lived in what is now La Guajira in northeastern Colombia. They could grow up to 12.8 m long and reach a weight of 1,135 kg. Fossils of Titanoboa have been found in the Cerrejón Formation, and date to around 58 to 60 million years ago.

[elosha11]

Interesting conflict. Short-faced bears, while a little bit more slender than brown bears or polar bears pound-for-pound, were enormous in absolute terms. I believe they are also considered to be more active predators then the more omnivorous bears of today.

I think speed/agility is a very large factor in combating huge constrictor snakes, however, the bear is substantially larger than the snake, and I'm just not sure the snake would be able to control it and constrict it. And I'm not sure if the bear would have the instinct or not to try to crush the snake's head, but bears are also so good at ripping and mauling, I think its larger weight would be too much for Titanoboa if the bear got a good bite in and started to rip and shake it.

Primarily due to the significant weight disparity, I have to vote for the bear here.

[Infinity Blade]

I'm shocked we didn't have this matchup way earlier tbh. Both are rather well known as far as the paleontology community goes, so a fight between "da biggest bear evurr" and "da biggest danger noodle evurr" is bound to be thought up by someone on the Internet. I'm sure this matchup existed in 2011-2012 era CF.

[poseidon]

This is a tough and interesting one, I'm not sure who to go for

[poseidon]

If the snake was 50 feet long and 2 tons, which, it isnt, I would favor it but a normal titanoboa up against a male arctotherium is a tough one for me

[Infinity Blade]

Normally I don't like to post on matchups these days since I've mostly lost interest in them. But I will sometimes make exceptions largely to inform others with unique facts about the animals involved, even more so if it's info people aren't likely to know.

My opinion is that both would struggle to kill each other. Titanoboa would struggle because it was probably rarely venturing out onto land (only to bask) and its skull and teeth apparently show adaptations for piscivory to an extent unique among boids. Among those adaptations are "weakly ankylosed teeth", or in other words, its teeth were weakly attached to its jawbone (I made a whole post about it here->).

Arctotherium might struggle because one biomechanical study found that it had a surprisingly weak bite for its size (I made a whole post about it here->). Although the jawbone itself was very strong and the teeth show a lot of wear (probably from eating dried meat, bones, or rough plant material), Arctotherium did not bite particularly hard compared to other bears. A 677 kg individual was estimated to have a bite force at the canines almost 80% that of a ~251 kg brown bear. That sounds impressive...until you realize that the Arctotherium is over 2.5 times bigger than the brown bear in question, yet it only bites almost as hard.

I don't know how or why this turned out to be the case. I would have thought it would have bitten reasonably hard, at least for a bear. But if this is true, then this is going to be a very long, drawn out kill for Arctotherium. You basically have a maw with power more befitting a much smaller animal (<250 kg) biting into the body of an animal weighing about as much as a black rhino. But a slow kill is still a kill, and I think it's worth noting that the spectacled bear (the only living tremarctine) is known to immobilize its prey with its forelimbs and eat its prey alive. And like I said above, one thing Arctotherium was very good at was taking stress at its lower jaw. So while it may not bite hard, it could shake very vigorously after a bite without fear of deforming its mandible. Given how I can't see this snake being very mobile on land, coupled with the fact that Titanoboa itself seems ill equipped to prey on an animal this large, I don't expect the snake to be able to do much to counter the bear.

TL;DR: At least on land, I think Arctotherium could triumph, if very slowly and tediously.