49 Fun Facts About Bear Trivia for Kids

How many kinds of bear are alive in the world today?

There are eight kinds of bear alive today. They live wild across three continents: the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Which is the biggest kind of bear alive today?

The polar bear is the biggest bear alive. A big male can be three metres long and weigh over 600 kilograms, making it the largest land-dwelling meat-eater.

Which is the smallest kind of bear?

It lives in the rainforests of Southeast Asia and is about the size of a big dog. It has a golden patch on its chest that looks like a rising sun.

What do giant pandas eat almost all day long?

Giant pandas spend 10 to 16 hours a day eating bamboo because it is low in nutrition. Bamboo makes up about 99 percent of their diet.

Which country do giant pandas come from?

Wild pandas live in mountain forests, mostly in a province called Sichuan. Zoos around the world borrow pandas from China.

What does a giant panda use its extra 'thumb' for?

The panda's 'thumb' is an enlarged wrist bone that works like a hook for holding bamboo stalks while it eats.

What colour is a polar bear's skin under its fur?

A polar bear's skin is black, which helps it soak up heat. Its fur only looks white because the hairs have no colour and bounce light back.

What is a polar bear's favourite food?

Polar bears wait by holes in the sea ice for a seal to pop up for air. They eat the fatty blubber, which gives them lots of energy.

Where in the world do polar bears live?

Polar bears live at the very top of the world. There are no polar bears at the South Pole, and no penguins at the North Pole.

Why do polar bears have small bumps on the pads of their paws?

Polar bears have tiny bumps called papillae on their footpads, there to grip slippery ice. Fur between the pads adds even more grip.

How many babies does a mother polar bear usually have at once?

A polar bear mother usually has two babies at once. They are born in midwinter inside a hole she digs in a snowdrift, and come out in spring.

Which sense do bears use most to find their food?

A bear's nose is even better than a dog's. Bears can smell food from several kilometres away and remember where they found it before.

Baby bears are called what?

Baby bears are called cubs. They are born tiny, blind and almost hairless, and depend on their mother to keep them warm.

Which bear has a big hump of muscle on its shoulders that helps it dig?

The hump is one way to tell a grizzly from a black bear, which does not have one. Grizzlies also have a dished-in face and short round ears.

In Alaska, big brown bears stand at waterfalls to catch which fish jumping upstream?

The fish are salmon swimming upstream to lay their eggs. When salmon are plentiful the bears eat only the fattiest bits, like the eggs and skin, and leave the rest for eagles and foxes.

Which continent is home to the spectacled bear, the only bear that lives there?

The spectacled bear is South America's only bear, living in the Andes mountains. It gets its name from pale rings around its eyes that look like glasses.

What is a grown-up male bear called?

A grown-up male bear is called a boar and a female is called a sow, the same names used for adult pigs.

Which bear from India slurps up ants and termites with its long lips like a vacuum cleaner?

The sloth bear of India has long, floppy lips and can close its nostrils, so it sucks up ants and termites like a vacuum cleaner. Its babies ride on their mother's back.

Which bear has a pale crescent-moon shape on its chest and is nicknamed the moon bear?

The Asian black bear is nicknamed the moon bear for the pale V-shaped crescent on its chest. It lives in forests across Asia, from Iran to Japan.

Black bears are not always black; which of these colours do some really come in?

They can be white, blonde, cinnamon, brown or jet black. A few white ones in Canada are called spirit bears, and they are not albinos.

Which is the most common bear in the world, with more of them than all the other bears put together?

The American black bear is the most common bear, with around 900,000 living across North America, more than all other bear species combined.

Bears have how many claws on each paw?

Every bear paw has five claws that cannot be pulled back in like a cat's. Bears use them for digging, climbing and tearing food.

What is the word for walking with the whole foot flat on the ground, like bears?

Bears are plantigrade: they walk with the whole sole on the ground, as people do, while cats and dogs are digitigrade and walk on their toes.

Which type of bear is the animal called a Kodiak bear, one of the two biggest bears alive?

The Kodiak bear is a brown bear that lives only on the Kodiak Islands of Alaska. Cut off there since the last ice age, a big male can weigh 680 kilograms.

Which cuddly Australian animal is often called a bear even though it is not one?

Koalas are marsupials that carry their babies in a pouch, and they sleep up to 20 hours a day.

Which president gave the teddy bear its name?

Theodore Roosevelt, nicknamed Teddy, refused to shoot a tied-up bear on a 1902 hunting trip in Mississippi. Brooklyn shopkeeper Morris Michtom then sold a stuffed bear as 'Teddy's bear'.

Winnie-the-Pooh was named after a real bear that lived at which zoo?

Winnie lived at London Zoo from 1914 until her death in 1934, after a soldier brought her to England during the First World War. Christopher Robin Milne loved visiting her.

Which city was the real bear Winnie named after?

Lieutenant Harry Colebourn bought the little bear for 20 dollars from a hunter in 1914 and named her Winnie after his home city, Winnipeg.

Where do Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends live?

Pooh and his friends live in the Hundred Acre Wood, which A. A. Milne based on the real 500 Acre Wood in Ashdown Forest near his Sussex home.

Which of Christopher Robin's other toys became a character in the Pooh stories?

Eeyore was one of Christopher Robin Milne's real stuffed toys, along with Piglet, Kanga, Roo and Tigger; Owl and Rabbit were invented by his father, A. A. Milne.

Paddington Bear travelled to England from which country?

He is a spectacled bear from 'darkest Peru'. He was found at Paddington railway station by the Brown family, who gave him his name.

What is Paddington Bear's favourite food?

Paddington loves marmalade sandwiches and keeps a spare one under his hat for emergencies. Author Michael Bond got the idea from a lonely teddy bear he bought in 1956.

Which bear teaches Mowgli the Law of the Jungle in The Jungle Book?

Baloo teaches Mowgli the Law of the Jungle; his name comes from bhalu, the Hindi word for bear, and Kipling describes him as a sleepy old bear.

Smokey Bear is a famous cartoon bear who reminds people to prevent what?

Smokey Bear has warned against wildfires since 1944 in America's longest-running public service campaign. A real orphaned baby bear, rescued from a 1950 New Mexico forest fire, became the living Smokey.

Which cartoon studio created Yogi Bear?

Hanna-Barbera introduced Yogi Bear in 1958 on The Huckleberry Hound Show. Yogi is 'smarter than the average bear' and pinches picnic baskets in Jellystone Park.

The Big Dipper is part of which constellation?

The Big Dipper, also called the Plough, is the seven brightest stars of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. Two of them point the way to the North Star.

During the Second World War, a real brown bear named Wojtek was made a soldier in which country's army?

Wojtek served in the army of Poland, carrying ammunition boxes for the 22nd Artillery Supply Company at Monte Cassino in Italy. After the war he lived at Edinburgh Zoo.

How many teeth does a grown-up bear usually have?

Most bears have 42 teeth, including four long canines for gripping and broad back molars for grinding plants. Humans have 32.

Which US state's flag shows a bear?

California's flag shows a bear walking on a patch of green grass above the words 'California Republic'. The design comes from the 1846 Bear Flag Revolt.

Which German city has a bear on its flag and coat of arms?

Berlin's flag and coat of arms show a bear standing on its hind legs, a symbol the city has used since the 1200s.

Which words come from an old Greek word for bear, via the Great Bear constellation in the northern sky?

Arktos meant bear in ancient Greek. So the Arctic is 'the land of the bear' and the Antarctic is 'the land opposite the bear'.

What colour is a giant panda cub when it is first born?

A newborn giant panda is pink, blind and almost hairless. Its famous two-tone markings only start to show after a week or two.

How big is a newborn giant panda compared with its mother?

Compared with its mother, a newborn panda is about 1/800 of her weight: just 90 to 130 grams, among the smallest newborns relative to their mother of any placental mammal.

How many babies does a wild panda mother usually raise at one time?

A wild panda mother usually raises just one baby. Twins are common, but she normally cares for only the stronger one.

The sun bear gets its name from what marking on its body?

The sun bear is named for an orange crescent patch on its chest that looks like a rising sun. No two bears have exactly the same patch.

Which Swiss city's name is said by legend to come from the German word for bear?

Legend says Duke Berchtold V named Bern after a bear, the first animal killed on a hunt when he founded the city in 1191. The city has kept live bears since 1513.

What does the girl's name Ursula mean?

Ursula is Latin for 'little she-bear', from ursa (she-bear) plus a diminutive ending; the bear family's scientific name Ursidae comes from the same root.

What is special about a polar bear's long outer guard hairs?

A polar bear's guard hairs are hollow, which helps trap warmth, and they have no pigment; a dense underfur about 5 centimetres long lies beneath them.

Before settling into its den for winter, how much food can a brown bear eat in a single day?

Fattening up for winter, the bear can eat about 90 pounds (41 kilograms) of food a day, building up fat to live off through the winter.