94 Fun Facts About Bears

How many species of bear are alive today?

Eight species of bear are recognised: American black, Asiatic black, brown, polar, giant panda, sloth, spectacled and sun bear, all in the family Ursidae.

On which continent did the last native bear, the Atlas bear, go extinct around the 1870s?

Africa is right: the Atlas bear (Ursus arctos crowtheri) ranged across the Atlas Mountains from Morocco to Libya and died out in the 1870s, leaving the continent with no native bear.

Which bear extends a 20–25 cm tongue to reach termites, ants and honey?

The sun bear has the longest tongue in the bear family, reaching 20–25 centimetres (7.8–9.8 inches) long when feeding, which it uses to extract termites, ants, and honey from hard-to-reach places.

Bears are unique among carnivorans in lacking which feature?

Bears have no touch-sensitive whiskers, but they make up for it with a nose considered better than a dog's and possibly the best of any mammal.

Which of the following is generally considered the smallest bear species?

The sun bear (Helarctos malayanus) is the smallest of all bear species, standing nearly 70 cm (28 in) at the shoulder and weighing 25–65 kg (55–143 lb).

Which bear counts as a marine mammal, thanks to a life spent on Arctic sea ice?

The Polar bear is officially a marine mammal: it lives on sea ice and depends so heavily on the ocean's ecosystem that it earns the label alongside seals and whales.

The giant panda's diet consists almost exclusively of what plant?

Bamboo makes up roughly 99% of the giant panda's diet; the animal spends 10 to 16 hours a day eating it despite having a carnivore's digestive tract.

Which species takes its English name from the pale markings on its face that can look like eyeglasses?

The Spectacled Bear (Tremarctos ornatus) gets its name from the cream-colored markings around its eyes, and sometimes on its chest, which resemble spectacles.

Grizzly bears are a subspecies of which larger bear species?

The Brown Bear is the species; the grizzly (Ursus arctos horribilis) is just its North American population, and the Kodiak is another.

What sets a bear's 'hibernation' apart from a ground squirrel's?

A hibernating bear's body temperature falls only a few degrees, compared with drops of 30 °C or more in small hibernators such as ground squirrels, which is why bears can rouse quickly if disturbed.

Which reproductive strategy lets a female bear time her cubs' birth to winter denning?

Bears exhibit a reproductive strategy called delayed implantation, where the fertilized egg (blastocyst) does not immediately implant in the uterine wall, allowing the female to time the birth of cubs to favorable conditions, usually during winter denning.

When do female grizzly bears give birth to their cubs?

Female grizzly bears give birth to their cubs in the den during winter hibernation. The tiny, blind cubs then consume milk and gain strength before emerging in spring.

Roughly how much fat can a brown bear put on per day in the run-up to denning?

Around 2–3 kg of fat a day: during autumn hyperphagia a brown bear can eat about 41 kg of food daily, building the reserves that carry it through winter denning.

What is the fastest speed reliably recorded for a grizzly bear at Yellowstone?

Grizzlies are anecdotally said to hit 35 mph, but 30 mph is the fastest that has been reliably clocked.

What type of vocalization do bears often use as a warning sign when agitated or feeling threatened?

Growls or huffs are the warning: a stressed bear huffs, snorts and blows air, then escalates to growls, roars and bellows in aggressive encounters.

Which bear species is almost entirely carnivorous, with a diet primarily consisting of seals?

While most bears are omnivorous, the polar bear is predominantly carnivorous, with its diet consisting mainly of seals.

The sloth bear's specialised mouthparts are adapted for feeding on what primary food source?

Termites and ants: the sloth bear's large mobile lips, long tongue and hook-like claws let it rip open mounds and vacuum up the insects inside.

Which of these species is the most arboreal, spending much of its life in trees?

Sun bears are excellent climbers and are considered the most arboreal (tree-dwelling) of all bears, often resting or sleeping in trees.

Adult males weigh 300–800 kg: which bear is the largest living land carnivore by body mass?

The Polar Bear is both the largest bear and the largest living land carnivore, with adult males weighing 300–800 kg (660–1,760 lb); the Kodiak brown bear is its closest rival.

In what condition are bear cubs born?

Blind, helpless and nearly hairless, with at most a thin layer of fur, newborn cubs depend on their mother for warmth and only follow her out of the den at two to three months.

The Kodiak bear is native to an archipelago in which US state?

Alaska: the Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi) lives only on the islands of the Kodiak Archipelago, isolated from mainland brown bears for roughly 12,000 years.

What is a common reason for grizzly bears to gain a significant amount of weight in the autumn?

In preparation for winter, grizzly bears undergo a period of hyperphagia, where they consume immense amounts of food to build essential fat reserves to sustain them through months of hibernation.

Which bear species is called the 'moon bear' for the crescent-shaped marking on its chest?

The Asiatic black bear is also known as the moon bear due to the white or cream crescent moon shape on its chest.

What is the average lifespan of a brown bear?

About 25 years: wild brown bears typically live 20 to 30 years, with the oldest known wild individual reaching the mid-thirties and captives living past 40.

Which of these bear species is native to South America?

The spectacled bear, also known as the Andean bear, is the only bear species native to South America, inhabiting the Andes Mountains.

During hibernation, bears experience a significant drop in which physiological process?

Heart rate: a hibernating bear's pulse slows from roughly 55 beats per minute to as few as 9, cutting its metabolic rate by up to three-quarters.

In which year did the IUCN downlist the giant panda from Endangered to Vulnerable?

2016: the IUCN Red List moved the giant panda from Endangered to Vulnerable after China's fourth survey counted about 1,864 wild pandas, up 17% in a decade.

What sound do bear cubs make when they are comfortable or nursing?

Distressed cubs squeal, bawl or scream, but a contented cub hums like a small motor, a sustained vocalization peculiar to bears.

Which sense do bears rely on most to locate their food?

Smell is the principal sense: a bear's nose can pick up a carcass several kilometres away, and its memory steers it back to spots that paid off before.

Compared with brown bears, what is true of an American black bear's claws?

Black bears regularly climb trees to feed, escape enemies and even hibernate, and their short, curved claws suit the job better than a grizzly's long digging claws.

Polar bears can run at up to 40 km/h, but at roughly what pace do they usually travel?

5.5 km/h is a polar bear's usual walking pace; it overheats quickly at speed, so it rarely holds the 40 km/h sprints it can manage.

Which of these bears skips hibernation, with food on offer all year in its tropical range?

Food stays available year-round across its tropical range, which is the likely reason it never dens up for winter.

What is the main product harvested from bears kept on farms in China and Vietnam?

Bile: thousands of Asiatic black bears are kept on farms in China and Vietnam, their bile drained through catheters or open wounds for sale as traditional medicine.

Which of the following characteristics is common to modern bears?

Common characteristics of modern bears include large bodies with stocky legs, small rounded ears, shaggy hair, plantigrade paws with five nonretractile claws, and short tails.

What is the primary diet of the spectacled bear?

Mostly plants and fruit: bromeliads alone can make up half a spectacled bear's diet, alongside fruit, cactus and palm hearts, with meat only around 5%.

Polar bear cubs typically stay with their mother for about how long?

About two and a half years: polar bear cubs leave the den at around three months old and follow their mother until roughly 30 months, learning to hunt seals.

What is the main reason the IUCN listed the polar bear as Vulnerable?

Habitat loss due to melting sea ice is the main reason: the IUCN Red List assessment projects a decline of more than 30% over three generations as Arctic summer ice shrinks.

What feature common to brown bears, including grizzlies, aids their digging?

The hump on a grizzly's shoulders is pure muscle, unique among bears, and powers the forelimbs for digging out roots, rodents and dens.

Bears are solitary, so apart from a mother with her cubs, when are two adults most likely to be found together?

During courtship a male may shadow a female for days or weeks to test whether she is ready to breed, and some Asian species wrestle and mock-fight as part of it.

Cubs of which species are known to ride on their mother's back?

Most bear cubs simply follow their mother on foot, but sloth bear cubs hitch a ride on her back for their first months.

What is the typical length of hibernation for grizzly bears in colder northern regions?

Grizzly bears typically hibernate for five to seven months each year, a period influenced by climate and food availability.

What is an adult male bear called?

A boar: adult male bears are boars and females are sows, the same terms used for pigs, while the young of both are cubs.

What lets a grabbed sun bear twist around and bite its attacker?

Loose skin around its neck: a sun bear's hide hangs so loosely that, when seized by a tiger or leopard, it can turn within its own skin and bite back.

Which bear species is the most common in North America?

American Black Bear: an estimated 800,000 or more live across Canada, the United States and Mexico, more than all other bear species combined.

Which Germanic first name is usually glossed as 'bear-brave' or 'bold bear'?

Bernard: from Germanic bern, 'bear', and hard, 'brave' or 'hardy', so the name reads as 'bear-brave'; Leonard is its lion-based twin.

Ursine bears carry 74 chromosomes; how many does the giant panda have?

42: the giant panda has 21 chromosome pairs, against 37 pairs (74) in ursine bears and 26 pairs (52) in the spectacled bear, the lower counts arising from fused chromosomes.

The giant panda's famous 'thumb' is actually what?

A modified wrist bone: the panda's 'thumb' is an enlarged radial sesamoid that works as a grip against its five true digits, which cannot oppose one another.

At Alaska's Brooks Falls, brown bears gather each summer to catch which fish?

Sockeye salmon: at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, brown bears line the lip of the falls each July to snatch sockeye leaping upstream to spawn, some eating more than 30 fish a day.

In Greek myth, which nymph was turned into a bear and then placed in the sky as Ursa Major?

Callisto: Zeus's lover was turned into a bear (by Hera or Artemis, depending on the telling); her son Arcas nearly killed her while hunting before Zeus set them both among the stars.

Knut, the polar bear cub who became a worldwide celebrity in 2007, was born at which zoo?

Berlin: Knut was born at Berlin Zoo in December 2006, the first polar bear cub to survive infancy there in more than 30 years, and was hand-reared by keeper Thomas Dörflein.

What caused the celebrity polar bear Knut to collapse and drown in his pool in 2011?

It was anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, an autoimmune brain inflammation that had never before been diagnosed in a non-human animal.

Wojtek, the bear enlisted in the Polish army in WWII, was bought as a cub from a shepherd in which country?

Iran: in April 1942 soldiers of Anders' Army bought the orphaned cub from a local boy near Hamadan; the bear was later formally enlisted so he could board a troopship to Italy.

At which 1944 battle is the soldier-bear Wojtek said to have carried ammunition crates?

Monte Cassino: during the 1944 battle Wojtek's 22nd Artillery Supply Company moved shells to the guns, and the story of the bear carrying crates led the unit to adopt a bear with a shell as its emblem.

Winnie, the London Zoo bear who inspired Winnie-the-Pooh, was named after which city?

Winnipeg: Canadian army vet Harry Colebourn bought the cub in 1914 and named her after his home city; he left her at London Zoo, where Christopher Robin Milne visited her.

Which ZIP code did Smokey Bear receive in 1964 to handle his fan mail?

20252: by 1964 Smokey was receiving as many as 13,000 letters a week, so the Post Office Department gave him a ZIP code of his own.

In which state was the cub who became the living Smokey Bear rescued in 1950?

New Mexico: the five-pound cub was found clinging to a burned tree after the 1950 Capitan Gap fire in the Lincoln National Forest and is buried at Smokey Bear Historical Park in Capitan, New Mexico.

In 2001 Smokey Bear's slogan swapped 'forest fires' for what word?

Wildfires: in 2001 the slogan became 'Only You Can Prevent Wildfires', after fires in grasslands and other non-forest areas showed the old 'forest fires' wording was too narrow.

Roosevelt's refusal to shoot a tied-up bear on a 1902 hunt in which state gave us the teddy bear?

Mississippi: Governor Andrew Longino hosted the November 1902 hunt near Onward, where Roosevelt refused to shoot the tied-up bear as unsportsmanlike but had it put out of its misery.

Whose Washington Post cartoon of Roosevelt sparing a bear inspired the first teddy bears?

Clifford Berryman: his November 1902 Washington Post cartoon showed Roosevelt refusing to shoot the bear; Brooklyn shopkeeper Morris Michtom saw it and named his stuffed bear 'Teddy'.

White Kermode 'spirit bears' owe their colour to a single change in which gene?

MC1R: a single-nucleotide change in the melanocortin 1 receptor gene, the same gene behind red hair in humans, blocks dark pigment in bears carrying two copies; about one in ten black bears on Princess Royal Island is white.

The heaviest polar bear on record, shot in Alaska in 1960, reportedly weighed about how much?

1,002 kg (2,209 lb): the male shot at Kotzebue Sound in 1960 stood 3.39 m tall on its hind legs, against a typical adult male's 350–700 kg.

Beneath its white-looking fur, a polar bear's skin is what colour?

Black skin under translucent fur is how a polar bear soaks up heat; the coat only looks white because its hollow hairs scatter light.

Which Canadian town is famous for a 'polar bear jail' that holds nuisance bears?

Churchill: bears gather on the Hudson Bay shore each autumn waiting for the ice, and problem bears are held in the town's Polar Bear Holding Facility until freeze-up, earning Churchill its 'Polar Bear Capital of the World' tag.

The first wild grizzly–polar hybrid confirmed by DNA was shot in 2006 on which Canadian island?

Banks Island: Idaho hunter Jim Martell shot the odd-looking bear near Sachs Harbour in April 2006, and DNA testing confirmed a grizzly father and a polar bear mother.

Which Russian Arctic island holds the world's densest concentration of polar bear maternity dens?

Wrangel Island: known in Chukchi as Umqiḷir, 'land of polar bears', it hosts hundreds of maternity dens a year and was the last refuge of woolly mammoths, until about 4,000 years ago.

Which naturalist formally classified the grizzly as Ursus horribilis in 1815?

George Ord: the Philadelphia naturalist named the bear Ursus horribilis in 1815, working from Lewis and Clark's accounts, which had spelled it 'grisley', a word that could mean either grizzled-grey or grisly.

Which country holds the world's largest brown bear population?

Russia: its forests and Far East hold more than 100,000 brown bears, against about 32,500 in the United States and roughly 25,000 in Canada.

The Marsican brown bear survives in a national park in which country?

Italy: the Marsican bear's stronghold is the Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise National Park in the central Apennines, where the remaining population numbers only a few dozen.

The Gobi bear, a desert-dwelling brown bear, is known in Mongolian by what name?

Mazaalai is the Mongolian name for the Gobi bear, Ursus arctos gobiensis, a brown bear subspecies that survives only in the Great Gobi Strictly Protected Area, with a population counted in the dozens.

The Sankebetsu brown bear incident of 1915, a week of attacks on a pioneer village, took place on which Japanese island?

Hokkaido is the only Japanese island with brown bears; the Sankebetsu attacks ran from 9 to 14 December 1915, killing seven people before the bear was shot.

'Night of the Grizzlies' recalls two fatal attacks on 13 August 1967 in which US national park?

Glacier National Park: two young women, Julie Helgeson and Michele Koons, were killed by different bears the same night, prompting an overhaul of how parks handled garbage and bears.

Timothy Treadwell, subject of the film Grizzly Man, was killed in 2003 in which Alaskan park?

Katmai National Park: Treadwell had spent 13 summers among its coastal brown bears before a 28-year-old male killed him and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard in October 2003.

Monarch, the grizzly on California's flag, was captured in 1889 for which press baron?

William Randolph Hearst: he sent Examiner reporter Allan Kelly to capture a grizzly as a publicity stunt; Monarch was displayed in San Francisco for 22 years until his death in 1911.

The coat of arms of Greenland, Denmark's Arctic territory, shows an upright polar bear on a shield of what colour?

Blue: Greenland's arms show a silver polar bear rampant on a blue shield, adopted in 1989 with the bear's left forepaw raised, a nod to Inuit tradition that polar bears are left-handed.

Legend says Bern was named after a bear killed by its founder, Duke Berthold V of which house?

Zähringen: Duke Berthold V founded Bern in 1191 and, legend says, named it after the bear that was his first kill in the hunt; the bear has been on the city's seal since 1224.

Madrid's coat of arms shows a bear reaching up into which kind of tree?

Strawberry tree: the bear and the madroño (Arbutus unedo) have appeared on Madrid's arms since the Middle Ages, and a 1967 statue of the pair stands in the Puerta del Sol.

Bear-baiting was finally outlawed in Britain by the Cruelty to Animals Act of which year?

1835: the Cruelty to Animals Act banned bear-baiting along with bull-baiting and cockfighting; Elizabeth I had been a fan, and a Puritan ban under the Commonwealth lapsed after the Restoration of 1660.

What is the active ingredient in bear spray?

Capsaicin: bear spray is 1–2% capsaicin and related capsaicinoids, the compounds that make chili peppers hot, and is meant to be sprayed in a cloud at a charging bear.

Paddington Bear arrived at a London station from 'darkest' which country?

Peru: Michael Bond's bear, first published in 1958, arrives at Paddington station with a label reading 'Please look after this bear. Thank you', having stowed away from darkest Peru.

Chi Chi, a London Zoo giant panda, inspired the logo of which organisation?

She arrived in 1958 and became so popular that the new World Wildlife Fund chose a panda as its symbol.

After Nixon's 1972 visit China gave the US two pandas; what did the US send in return?

A pair of musk oxen: Milton and Matilda went to Beijing Zoo in exchange for Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, offered by Zhou Enlai after Pat Nixon admired pandas at a Beijing dinner.

A newborn giant panda weighs roughly what fraction of its mother's weight?

About 1/800: at 90–130 g a newborn giant panda is among the smallest babies of any placental mammal relative to its mother, born pink, blind and toothless.

Gus, the Central Park Zoo polar bear, became a 1990s celebrity for doing what up to 12 hours a day?

Swimming obsessively: Gus swam figure-eights in his pool for up to 12 hours a day, and the zoo paid a behaviourist $25,000 to treat him with toys, games and Prozac.

Cave bears, once widespread in Europe, died out roughly how long ago?

About 24,000 years ago: cave bears vanished during the Last Glacial Maximum; France's Chauvet Cave, famous for its paintings, holds cave-bear skulls and the hollows where they hibernated.

Sloth bears lack which teeth, which helps them suck up insects like a vacuum?

Upper incisors: sloth bears are missing their two upper central incisors, and that gap, plus a long lower lip that stretches over the nose, forms a tube for hoovering up insects.

Admiralty Island's Tlingit name, 'Fortress of the Bears', gave English which word for liquor?

Hooch: the island's Tlingit name Xootsnoowú, 'fortress of the bears', was anglicised as Hoochinoo, and the potent spirit its people distilled lent the word to English; the island has one of the densest brown bear populations anywhere.

Old Ephraim, a grizzly killed by a sheepherder in 1923, was among the last grizzlies in which state?

Utah: sheepherder Frank Clark trapped and shot Old Ephraim in Logan Canyon in August 1923; also called Old Three Toes for a deformed foot, the bear had evaded hunters for over a decade.

The Great Bear Rainforest covers 6.4 million hectares on the coast of which Canadian province?

British Columbia: the Great Bear Rainforest runs along its central and north coast, and in 2016 the province agreed to protect 85% of its old-growth forest from industrial logging.

The Old Norse word berserkr, root of the English 'berserk', is usually read as meaning what?

Bear-shirt is the usual reading: a warrior who fought wearing a bear's pelt. A rival reading, 'bare-shirt' for one fighting without armour, has long been disputed.

In the UK, the seven brightest stars of Ursa Major are commonly called what?

The Plough: the same seven stars are the Big Dipper in North America, and an older English name was Charles's Wain.

On which Norwegian archipelago are people leaving town advised to carry a rifle against polar bears?

Svalbard: the Governor requires anyone travelling outside the settlements to carry a means of scaring off polar bears, with a rifle as a last resort, because the bears have been protected since 1973.

What is the scientific name of the polar bear?

Ursus maritimus, 'sea bear', is the name Constantine Phipps gave the polar bear in 1774 when he first described it as a species distinct from the brown bear.

Which extinct genus, which spread through Asia in the Oligocene, is ancestral to all living bears?

Living bear lineages split from it 15–20 million years ago; pandas diverged first, about 19 million years ago.

A hibernating bear does not urinate for months; what happens to its urea?

Recycled into amino acids: a hibernating bear neither urinates nor defecates for months; gut bacteria break down urea and the nitrogen is rebuilt into protein, sparing its muscles.