Polar bear gets afternoon tea on Arctic ship

Never mind the tiger, this is the polar bear that came to tea.

The animal was reportedly attracted to the ship after smelling the research team's afternoon snacks.

See also: Berlin Zoo welcomes new baby polar bear

See also: Polar bear moves zoos after 'divorce'

The bear poked its head through the window of the Lance, a ship used by the Norwegian Polar Institute, hoping to join in the feast reports the Metro.

And he didn't go away disappointed as one of the men dared to hand feed it a tasty piece of fish.

The picture was uploaded to Reddit with the caption: "My uncle, who works on an Arctic research vessel, got an unexpected visitor today."

A number of Reddit users made jokes about the image. One said: "Hey Bob, can you grill this 3 minutes each side? I'm not a fan of sushi."

Another wrote: "And that's why you always close the galley on the arctic research vessel kitchen."

Others shared their thoughts on how feeding the bear didn't look like a good move.

One wrote: "Polar bears are designed to pull 400lb seals out of a hole in the ice. They are straight up murder machines. This does not look like a good idea at all."

One agreed, writing: "Teaching the bear "there's food inside here" seems like a legitimately terrible idea."

And another said: "YES That's exactly what I was thinking. I would be so wary of encouraging this kind of behaviour from bears, even if it doesn't come back to this ship looking for food, it might cause it to go onto other ships looking for food. And honestly in any sort of close quarters contact with a bear, you really don't stand a chance."