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I'm wondering whether it would be possible for humanoids to evolve from bears.
bears share many characteristics with primates such as being amazing tree climbers and having the ability to use tools.
What type of evolutionary pressures would lead to the rise of such species?
Wow lots of bipedalism questions lately, here's a good list of the theories on why humans did it, pick your favorite and adapt that!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipedalism#Evolution_of_human_bipedalism
I like bears in particular for a couple of reasons:
-They occasionally use bipedalism now to explore their environment and acquire food (which was true of primates before we evolved)
-Bear species are super creative with their diet and if you find them a great food source that requires more bipedalism I could realistically see them evolving for it. Recently in North America they've gone from Short-Faced Bears (extinct scavenger obligate carnivores) -> Grizzly Bears (omnivore that prefers meat) -> Black Bears (more populous omnivore and probably actively knocking over your garbage can). Not to mention Polar Bears and Pandas, the latter of which is frankly an abomination of what species should be able to evolve to do.
Scarcity of food that requires staying upright for a long time to scan the environment for preys. Plus. On 4 legs animals run faster, but then they can lose sight of their preys if they start the chase from a far point. Humans were not fast sprinters when they hunted, but they had good endurance and chasing a prey in group they could eventually encircle it, such long distance hunts required running keeping an eye on the prey for quite some time.
