All You Would Ever Want To Know About Bears

"All You Would Ever Want To Know About Bears"," They are generally large animals, and are characterized by a plantigrade walk (on their heels, like humans), a large body, short legs, a stub of a tail, small, round ears, and forward facing eyes.
 The panda, for example, is almost exclusively a plant eater.


The black bear has managed to be quite prolific and successful as bears go.
 Estimates of the number of black bears in North America vary, with 750,000 being the most often suggested.


Despite their name, black bears can actually appear in a variety of colors.


Expert estimates of the weights of the bears also seem to vary widely.
 However, the degree of sexual dimorphism exhibited by the species makes accurate accounts difficult.
 The bear was 802 pounds, far heavier than would be expected.
 They can and will eat nearly anything.


The black bear has claws which are shorter and more curved than those of the grizzly bear.
 Often, a sow will encourage her cubs to tree themselves while there is danger.
 They mostly use their front claws for climbing and keeping a hold.
 It presents an image so like ourselves that we often get caught up in the "cuteness" and forget that it is a wild animal that we are dealing with.
 In reality, the brown bear is a complex and fascinating animal deserving of great respect.
 The color of the animal varies from a light creamy color through to black.
 In addition, has a wider distribution than any of the other bears, and can be found throuhout the world.
 This diversity does not limit itself to purely geographical happenings, as the bear is also found in a great number of different habitats as well.
 At one time, the brown bear could be found throughout the North American continent.


This animal's weight varies widely throughout the course of the year.
 The males can weigh anywhere from 300 to 860 pounds, with the females coming in somewhere between 205 and 455 pounds.
 The island grizzlies of Alaska (Kodiak and Admiralty) are considered the largest land carnivores in the world, and live on a diet of fish and other rich food.


Of the browns, people tend to be more familiar with the grizzly bear.
 Not so! The name "grizzly" comes from the "grizzling" of its fur, which gives it a lighter color at the tips of hairs.
 Females and males mature at approximately the same time, but males often do not become successful breeders until they are 8-10 years old due to competition with older, stronger males.
 The cubs will stay with the sow up to 2 1/2 years, meaning that the female may only breed about once every 3 years or so.


Like most other bears, the brown bears are loners; with the notable exception of females with cubs.
 The females require the stimulation of frequent mating before they will ovulate.
 This is one of the factors that makes research into bears more difficult, since paternity is often hard to determine.
 The ranges of males will often intersect those of several females.
 They will even congregate peacefully in places where food is plentiful such as garbage dumps and salmon streams.

Brown bears are technically carnivores, but in practice most of their diet consists of plant matter such as sedges, grasses, bulbs, seeds, berries, and roots.
 Some of these bears have even developed predatory practices on large animals, including moose, caribou, and elk.
 The most carnivorous of the bears, it is also the most patient.
 When it does, it is all over for the seal.

The conditions of the polar north are harsh, with temperatures well below freezing almost constantly.
 Like a giant solar panel, the skin of the bear is black to draw every bit of possible heat from the sunlight.
 Below these hairs are "underhairs" of orange or yellow.
 They are, however, smaller and closer to the head.
 The paws are large, and slightly webbed, which also contribute to the bear's abilities as a swimmer.
 The males are huge, the heaviest of them weighing as much as 1300 pounds.

The bears do not generally hibernate, but remain active for most of the year.
 They go through a denning and hibernation period, just like that of the black, brown, and other bears.
 Even in captivity.
 Both are medium sized, and black.
 These bears have a white patch of fur on their chest, which is often shaped like a V, with some varying amount of white on their chin as well.

The asiatic black bears are not as widely studied as the other bears, so very little information is available about their relative size and other statistics.
 The males usually weigh from 220-440 pounds, and the females from 110-275 pounds.
 They are known in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Sikkim, Northern India, Bhutan, and into Burma.
 Mostly, these bears live in forested areas, especially hilly and mountainous places.
 In summer, asiatic black bears have been spotted at over 9,900 feet--moving to lower elevations as the cold of winter comes on.
 Current thinking is that the bears in the southern reaches do not hibernate.
 They eat carrion, bee's nests, insects, invertebrates, small vertibrates, and fruit.
 They are also known to make daybeds and feeding platforms in nut-bearing trees.
 The bear is often black, but reddish animals have been seen.
 Their dark fur is often interspersed with whitish or greyish strands, and they display a noticeable whiteish or cream-colored U shaped patch on their chest.
 Their belly and underlegs are nearly bare.
 The claws of the sloth bear are sickle-shaped, and deeply curved.
 The cubs have 42 while nursing.
 The dirt that the bears ingest with their food often leads to bad teeth, as it grinds away the enamel.
Sloth bear adults can weigh anywhere from 120-310 pounds and measure anywhere from 60-75 inches in length.
Sloth bears are found in the forested areas and grasslands of India and Sri Lanka.
Sloth bears live a solitary existence, except when raising young or mating.
Reproduction for the sloth bears is a fairly standard affar.
 Like other bears, the litters are small, consisting of only a cub or two.
 The cubs stay in their mother's earth den for the first two to three months, they will continue to stay with their mother through their adolescence, which lasts approximately 2 years.
 The markings vary slightly from bear to bear, but the general look is the same.
 The spectacled bear is a small animal as bears go, the males generally weighing from 220 to 340 pounds, and the females 140 to 180 pounds.
The females are generally mature somewhere between their 4th and 7th years.
 The cubs weigh a mere 10-11 1/2 ounces at birth.
 Like most other bears, the female requires this stimulation to ovulate.
 The bears that have been studied in captivity have shed some light on their society.

The sun bear is a rather small member of the bear family which makes its home in the lowland tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia.
 It has a white or yellowish patch on its chest shaped like a half-moon.
 Sometimes the light color extends up over the eyes.
 The ears of the sun bear are smaller and rounder than those of other bears.
The omnivorous sun bear lives on a diet consisting mostly of termites, birds, small mammals, and even bits of oil palms, and other commercial crops.
 The adults only weigh up to 145 pounds, and measure at the longest 60 inches.
 However, poaching and deforestration have been slowly eroding the available population and habitat.
 Captive breeding has produced such wildly different gestation periods that scientists are not even sure if the sun bear has a mechanism of delayed implantation.
 For many years, it was believed to be a type of racoon, like the similarly named red panda.
 It has several adaptations that make it unusual.
 The genitalia of the male are rear-pointing and small which is also decidedly unbearish, and much more like those of the red panda.


Typical pandas have a large head, and distinct white and black coloration which contrasts sharply with the deep green of their natural habitat.
 These places are along the Tibetan plateau in Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanzi provinces.
) mountain forests grown thick with patches of more than 30 species of bamboo.
8 to 3.
 The territories of the males often overlap those of a number of females.
 Males grow to 190-275 pounds and 64-76 inches in length, with females being slightly smaller and lighter at 155-220 pounds.
 The females are in estrus for anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks, but are only really receptive for a few days of that time.
 The cubs are weaned at nine months, but often stay with their mothers for more than two years.
 Females with cubs being the only exception.
 Additionally, they communicate with different vocalizations.
Pandas are quite vegitarian, making bamboo 99% of their diet.