What are the types of bears. Different types of bears. Mighty polar bear

Bears are the largest land predators on our planet. Currently, there are several types of them on earth.

The largest is the white or polar bear. In length, it reaches three meters, and weighing up to 1000 kg. Habitat - the Arctic and the islands of the Arctic Ocean.

The smallest is the marsupial koala bear. The size of this herbivorous bear is no more than 60 cm, and the weight is 12-13 kg. Koala is endemic to Australia, lives only on this continent.

Description

Bears belong to the class of mammals, to the predatory order, to the bear family, they exist on earth for about 6 million. For most peoples, these animals have been considered a symbol of strength and power for centuries. And in our time, these far from ordinary animals deserve respect and appropriate treatment.

Outwardly, all bears look rather awkward: a large, massive body, clubfoot paws and the habit of leaning on the entire foot when walking make its gait somewhat swaying from side to side. The body of bears is covered with thick hair, with color depending on the species: polar white, brown - brown, pandas - two-tone, black and white, etc. Bears with dark fur become noticeably gray with age and become almost gray in old age.

A large head, on a short powerful neck, rounded ears, and a large frightening mouth with powerful jaws, studded with large sharp teeth that can easily gnaw through any, both vegetable and meat food. With the help of its large and sharp claws, a bear can climb trees without much effort or, tearing the ground, get food from under the ground. Despite the outward clumsiness, if necessary, they have a very quick reaction. The strength and especially the sharpness of the blow of the clawed paw of such a beast gives him the opportunity to deal with the enemy with one blow. In moments of danger or attack, this predator can run at speeds up to 50 km/h. Most of them are excellent swimmers. And the polar bear, which spends a lot of time in the water, has special membranes between its fingers that help it when swimming.

People often ask: does a bear have a tail? Yes, there is, but it is clearly visible only in the giant panda, in other species it is so short that it is almost indistinguishable among the fur. Another feature is that bears do not have particularly sharp eyesight, but hearing and smell are well developed. Bears often stand on their hind legs and, turning in different directions, with the help of hearing and smell, they can receive information about who is out of sight. This beast is able to smell the smell of a person for several kilometers. The life expectancy of most bears reaches 45 years.

All bears prefer secluded places away from humans. For forest species, these are dense forests with ponds and swamps, for polar bears, this is the Arctic and the northern islands, for pandas, these are bamboo thickets, and for koalas, these are eucalyptus groves.

Depending on the species, they have a different diet. Most bears feed mainly on plant foods, these are berries, mushrooms, nuts, and roots. If possible, do not refuse fish and small animals. Older males hunt large animals such as deer, elk, wild boar. Polar bears feed on fish, seals and other marine animals that live in the northern seas. The panda eats bamboo shoots, and the koala eats eucalyptus leaves.

Types of bears

Currently, there are 9 main types of bears in nature:

Brown, lat. Ursus. This is the most common species, forming about 20 subspecies, the so-called geographic races, which differ in both size and color. The appearance of the brown bear is almost typical of the entire species. Powerful body, covered with dense evenly colored hair, powerful paws with long claws up to 10 cm long, massive head with rounded ears, and round eyes. The largest brown ones are found in Kamchatka and Alaska. One of the subspecies is the famous grizzly, the largest in the Americas - up to 700 kg. with growth up to 3 meters. European brown bears are on average up to 1.2-2 meters long, up to 1 meter high at the withers, and weigh up to 400 kg. Living in Russia generally weigh about 600 kg. Males are one and a half times larger than females.

The color of brown bears differs significantly not only depending on the habitat, but often within the same region. The color ranges from light brown to almost black. Grizzlies in the Rocky Mountains have whitish hair at the ends. Himalayans often show a white-gray coloration, and in Syria they are reddish-brown. Starting from spring and almost all summer, and sometimes until autumn, bears molt and throughout this period they look unkempt and shabby. But after shedding, the new coat looks brighter.

The habitat of the brown bear is very wide: It is found starting from the Far East in Russia, throughout Asia, in the forests and mountains of Europe, in Scandinavia, in England and Ireland, in North America. The most famous types of brown bear are: Eurasian, Siberian, Tien Shan, Ussuri, Mexican, grizzly. One species, the so-called spectacled, is also found in South America. The nutrition of bears living on different continents corresponds to the plant and animal resources of their habitats. They go into hibernation for the winter, building dens for this in lowlands, ravines, among stones, or tree trunks, and strengthening all this with branches.

White or polar, lat. Ursus maritimus or in Chukchi - umka, and in Eskimo - nanuk, the largest of all. The length of his body is more than 3 meters, and the mass is about a ton. The polar bear is half land, half sea animal and therefore it looks different from its land relatives. Having lived for millions of years in the region of the Arctic Ocean, this predator has perfectly adapted to the northern cold climate. Regardless of the season, he spends most of his time in the water, which, even in severe frosts, is naturally warmer than the surrounding air. He has a more elongated body, a long neck, larger and longer, in comparison with the body, paws with webbed fingers between the fingers, like large oars. All this enhances its excellent swimming capabilities. And wool hairs are hollow tubes inside, providing high heat resistance and increasing buoyancy. The undercoat is a kind of heat insulator that helps to keep warm even at the lowest outside temperature. The coat color varies from yellowish to pure white. The soles of the paws are also covered with wool, only coarser. It allows him to move easily on the ice.

The polar bear feeds on: various fish, which are abundant in the polar seas, and marine animals, mainly seals, which have large reserves of fat, which the polar bear processes into its own fat, allowing it to live through the long polar winter.

The habitat of the polar bear is the entire Arctic region of the Northern Hemisphere. Breeding places are strictly determined by the bears themselves, these are the Wrangel Islands or Franz Josef Land. For many years now, these islands have become protected areas, and on them every year she-bears make more than 200 dens, which they dig in the snow under the ice. There, she-bears take out their cubs and usually take care of them for up to two years, until they become independent.

Almost disappeared several decades ago, these, one of the most beautiful animals on earth, have now replenished their genus so much that they often cause great concern to people living in the Arctic. They unceremoniously invade villages, weather stations, geologists, oil and gas production sites, and almost any northern habitat. People, realizing the difficulties these animals face, do their best to help them, mainly with food in the winter.

Black or baribal, lat. Ursus americanus is the bear of North America. It lives in Alaska, Canada, most US states and Mexico. There are 16 varieties of black bear. Outwardly, he is similar to his brown relative. However, it is somewhat smaller and covered with black, sometimes with blue, fur. The size of an adult black bear rarely exceeds 2 meters and weighs 300 kg. Females are no more than one and a half meters in length. They have a peculiar pointed muzzle, rather long paws, at the end of which are short feet.

These bears are born gray or brown, and become black only around the age of three. Baribals feed mainly on plant foods: nuts, acorns, berries, rowan fruits, clover and other herbs and roots. Do not refuse insects such as: termites, ants, bees. When possible, fish and small animals are caught. Sometimes they attack livestock. Occasionally climb into apiaries, gardens, ranches. People are rarely attacked.

Himalayan or white-breasted, lat. Ursus thibetanus, much smaller than the brown one. A little over one and a half meters in length, the height at the withers is about 75-80 cm, the females are even smaller. Outwardly, he has his own differences: a more slender body, an elongated muzzle, large rounded ears. The color of the coat is shiny black, on the chest there is a white or yellowish spot shaped like a crescent. The main habitat is the Himalayas, but is found in the Far East, Altai, China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Japan, less often in Afghanistan and Iran.

In the Himalayas in the summer it climbs into the mountains to a height of up to 4000 m, in the winter it descends into the valleys. Prefers to be in trees. It feeds on plant foods: acorns, nuts, tree fruits, grass shoots and roots. If possible, it eats frogs, mollusks, and insects, does not disdain carrion. Avoids people and does not attack. For the winter, it arranges dens in the hollows of old trees and hibernates. Lives 25 years. The enemies of the Himalayan bear are brown bears and tigers.

Gubach, lat. Melursus ursinus. The bear is of medium size, the body length is about 1.8 meters, the height at the withers is up to 90 cm. The females are much smaller. Gubach has a rather massive body with a large head. Covered with black long shaggy fur, on the neck forming a kind of shaggy untidy mane. On the chest, the sloth has a light-colored spot resembling the letter V. On the paws are long curved claws, thanks to which it can climb trees quite easily.

The sloth bear, like an anteater, has adapted to feed on termites. It has an elongated muzzle with protruding lips and a long tongue, which it can use as a powerful pump. With his large curved claws, he easily breaks termite mounds, and then, folding his lips into a tube, and using his long tongue, sucks the termites and their larvae out of the fragments of the termite mound. So that termites do not climb into the nose, its nostrils can be firmly closed. Because of the appearance of its tubular muzzle, it got its name. In addition to termites, it feeds on any plants and their fruits. If possible, it can bully any animal, smaller than it in size. He has almost no rivals, except for the tiger, when faced with which he does not retreat, but enters into a fight with them and often wins. Habitat southeast Asia: India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh.

Spectacled, lat. Tremarctos ornatus. Medium size, body length from 1.5 to 1.8 meters, height at the withers up to 80 cm. The muzzle is not very wide and rather short. Covered with shaggy black or black-brown hair. Its eyes are framed with light-coloured fur, forming glasses-like rings, which is how it got its name. On the neck, too, lighter wool forming a kind of collar. The spectacled bear is the only bear living in the Southern Hemisphere, namely in the countries of South America: Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.

Spectacled bears live in remote areas and therefore they are little studied. It is believed that this is a herbivore, it feeds on the fruits of plants, roots, shoots of herbs and plants, termites and ants. Sometimes they raid corn crops. There is evidence that sometimes spectacled bears attack vicuñas and guanacos, and when there is a shortage of food, they also eat carrion. Cases of attack on a person are very rare, and provoked by the people themselves. Spectacled bears are active at dusk, sleep during the day. They are awake all year round, do not hibernate in winter.

Malay or biruang, lat. Helarctos malyanus. The length of the largest does not exceed one and a half meters, and the height at the withers is a little more than half a meter. An adult Malayan bear weighs about 60 kg. He has a rather stocky build, with a broad, short muzzle and small, rounded ears. Fangs are small, molars are flat, adapted for grinding plant foods. Covered with short hard wool of black, sometimes brown color. On the chest there is a V-shaped spot of golden color, strong legs with unusually large paws and curved thick claws adapted for climbing trees.

Leads a nocturnal lifestyle, sleeps during the day. In principle, biruangs are omnivores, they feed on insects, worms, fruits and shoots of plants, and roots. Easily climb palm trees, picking bananas and coconuts. Strong jaws allow them to easily crack open coconuts. They catch small rodents, lizards, birds. Do not disdain carrion. They love the honey of wild bees, which is also successfully extracted with the help of an incredibly long tongue from the hollows of trees, where the bees arrange their honeycombs. Some adapt to live near settlements, which annoys the locals. They unceremoniously come to rummage through garbage cans, attack livestock, ruin plantations with crops, as well as banana and coconut plantations. Malayan bears live in the forests of the subtropical and tropical zones, in the foothills of Southeast Asia: in Thailand, in Indonesia, in southern China. Life expectancy 20 years.

bamboo bear or big panda, lat. Ailuropoda melanoleuca. These are very popular, cute two-colored herbivores. The panda has a squat massive body, a large head with large ears and short paws with sharp claws. The fur is thick, with black and white spots. These bears are adapted to life in bamboo thickets, which serve as food for them. The inner surface of the soles of the paws is devoid of wool and this will allow them to easily handle smooth bamboo stems. Powerful jaws and flattened teeth allow, like millstones, to grind bamboo stems. Pandas live only in the mountainous regions of China, in Tibet and in Sichuan province in southern China.

Pandas are a very rare species, it is believed that in the wild there are just over 2,000 of them. The only country where pandas still live in small numbers is Japan, whose emperor, Tenji, was given them in the sixth century by the Chinese Empress Wu Zetian. Many zoos in the world want to have these exotic animals, but the Chinese do not allow the export of pandas to other countries, they consider them a national treasure. The only options are a 10-year lease of $1 million per year and guarantees that the cubs born during that time are the property of China.

marsupial bear, koala, lat. Phascolarctos cinereus. This is one of the most unusual animals. His appearance resembles that of a toy teddy bear. A rounded body covered with smoky gray fur, a large head with large ears like a Cheburashka, front paws that look like human hands and a black leathery nose, almost like a parrot's beak, make it very cute. In addition, the koala is a representative of marsupials, like most animals in Australia, the only continent in the world on which it lives.

The only food of the marsupial bear is eucalyptus leaves, which is why they live only in those regions of Australia where eucalyptus groves are located. Thanks to strong paws and sharp claws, the koala can easily climb trees, on which it spends almost its entire life. They rarely land on the ground. It has long been believed that koalas do not drink water at all, but this is not so, they settle near water sources and in extreme heat go to the water and drink it.

Despite the fact that eucalyptus leaves contain hydrocyanic acid, the marsupial bear has a kind of antidote. In addition, at different times of the year, koalas use different types of eucalyptus for food. Every day this bear cub eats up to one kilogram of eucalyptus leaves. The maximum height of a koala is just over half a meter, and the weight is within 10 kg. At one time, Europeans intensively hunted koalas, which led to their noticeable decrease. Now they are protected and even try to breed in captivity.

Lifestyle

Of all the bears, only white polar bears are real predators, and then, due to the specifics of their habitats, in the ice of the Arctic, apart from fish and animals, they simply have nothing else to eat. Although they do not refuse berries and other plant foods in the summer. The rest prefer plant foods. Siberian and Kamchatka excellent anglers. They choose places on the rifts of rivers and settle there during spawning, catching nutritious red fish. Summer is an opportunity for all bears to replenish their diet with vitamins, so they can often be seen in places where berries grow, they especially love raspberries. It is in the raspberries that they most often meet with people. But if you do not show a sense of fear, it is quite possible to disperse peacefully with them, but in no case should you run away, because at these moments the hunting instinct wakes up in them, and it is not easy to run away from a bear. Be that as it may, it is better not to meet with bears, therefore, when traveling to the places where they live, it is better to find out from the locals where they were most often seen, and do not go there.

Quite often, people try to domesticate little cubs left without a mother, as they are very funny, but this does not lead to anything good. Keeping this wild beast at home, even from the very first days, is far from safe. The bear is a strong and dangerous predator, and over time, the animal instinct wakes up in it anyway. For this beast, the home is natural conditions that cannot be replaced.

Bears are a very large group of animals inhabiting modern nature, which people have been destroying for a long time, and they could completely disappear from our land. Therefore, it is necessary to do everything necessary to preserve them for the future of mankind. To this end, many countries have developed programs for the conservation of bears as a species, but the main thing is the attitude of people towards these peculiar animals, equal inhabitants of our planet.

Bears - do they belong to the canine family?? and got the best answer

Answer from Elena Kazakova[guru]
To the bear family
Family BEAR (Ursidae)
Mammals / Carnivores / Bears /
Mammalia / Carnivora / Ursidae /
BEAR FAMILY (Ursidae) Compared with other groups of the predatory order, representatives of the bear family are distinguished by the greatest uniformity in appearance, size, and many features of the internal structure. Bears are the largest of modern predatory animals. Some of them reach a length of 3 m to a mass of up to 725 and even 1000 kg. All animals of this family have a powerful body, many with high withers; paws are strong, with large claws, five-fingered, plantigrade; the tail is short, barely visible from the fur; the head is massive, with small eyes and ears (some are short, while others, on the contrary, are long). The coat is dense, uniformly colored in black, brown or white, which does not change with the seasons. Some species have light markings on the chest or around the eyes. The skull of bears is large, with large crests and zygomatic arches. The fangs are powerful, while the rest of the teeth, due to mixed nutrition, are not as large as one might expect, and the carnivorous teeth are not developed. Typical species have 42 teeth, but some do not have middle incisors or second and third premolars, and therefore the total number of teeth is reduced to 40 and even 38 and 34.
Family taxonomy:
Subfamily Ursinae
Genus Helarctos
Helarctos malayanus – biruang (Malay bear, sun bear)
Genus Melursus
Melursus ursinus - sloth bear (lazy bear)
Genus Tremarctos
Tremarctos ornatus – spectacled bear
Genus Ursus
Ursus americanus - American black bear
Ursus arctos - brown bear (brown bear, gray bear)
Ursus maritimus - polar bear
Ursus thibetanus - Himalayan bear (Asian black bear)
Subfamily Ailurinae
Genus Ailuropoda
Ailuropoda melanoleuca – panda (giant panda)
Genus Ailurus
Ailurus fulgens - small panda (the addition of this species and genus to the bear family will cause great controversy).
The paws are short, stocky, with hairy soles, each containing five curved claws unable to contract. The bear's gait is flat-footed, with the soles of the feet fully touching the ground, a shuffling gait. The claws are controlled by powerful muscles, allowing bears to climb trees as well as dig and rip prey while hunting. Hearing and vision are less developed than their keen sense of smell. Bears, in general, live alone, exceptions during courtship and females with cubs. Litters are produced at intervals of one to four years with a short gestation period, although females are able to delay the introduction of a fertilized egg, stretching the pregnancy from six to nine months. Litter size is one - four helpless cubs weighing 200 to 700 grams, usually born in a secluded den or cave. They stay with their mother for at least the first year, reaching sexual maturity at 2 to 5 years of age. Species that live in extremely cold regions spend most of the winter in a lair, in a state called hibernation (hibernation). During this period, they live off the accumulated fat reserves without eliminating waste products.
Bears are widespread in Europe, Asia, North America, and are found in North Africa. One species lives in South America, isolated from the rest of the family. Most bears live in lowland or mountain forests of temperate and tropical latitudes, less often in open highlands. One species inhabits the Arctic, up to the ice fields of the ocean. Bears have a long lifespan. A polar bear can live in captivity for more than 30 years, a brown one - over 45 years. Bears are valuable hunting animals. The decline in numbers required the introduction of restrictions on shooting and even protection. In some cases, bears can harm crops, beekeeping, and livestock. Bears are favorite objects of keeping in zoos and training.

Bears have a unique status among animals: not as cute as dogs or cats, not as dangerous as wolves or mountain lions, but majestic enough to inspire fear, admiration and even envy. In this article, you'll discover 10 interesting facts about bears, from how they hibernate to how they communicate.

Read also:

1. Bear family (Ursidae) includes 8 modern types

2. All types of bears have similar anatomical features.

There are some minor differences, but all eight species of bears described in the previous paragraph of this article have roughly the same appearance: large torsos, massive limbs, narrow snouts, long hair, short tails, and foot stance (i.e., bears, unlike most other mammals, walk on the ground on the whole foot, like people). Most bears also feed on various animals, fruits and vegetables, with two important exceptions: the polar bear, which is more carnivorous, preys on seals and walruses, and the giant panda feeds only on vegetation, mainly bamboo (although, oddly enough, its digestive system is relatively well adapted to the digestion of meat).

3. Bears are solitary animals

Bears can be considered the most asocial mammals in the world. Courtship between adult males and females is very brief, and after mating, females leave to raise offspring on their own for about three years, and then mate again with males. Adult bears are almost completely solitary, which is good news for tourists who happen upon a solitary grizzly in the wild, but an unusual occurrence when you consider that most other carnivorous and omnivorous mammals (from wolves to pigs) congregate at least in small groups.

4. Pinnipeds - the closest relatives of bears

Considering the distribution of the so-called "bear dogs" millions of years ago, including the representative of the Amphicyon family, Amphicyon (see photo above), it can be assumed that modern bears are most closely related to canids. In fact, molecular analysis shows that the bears' closest living relatives are the pinnipeds, a family of marine mammals that includes seals and walruses. Both of these families of mammals are descended from a common ancestor, the ancestor, or "concestor," who lived for some time during the Eocene epoch, about 40-50 million years ago, although the exact identification of the precursor species remains a matter of debate.

5. Bear (eng. "bear") derived from the ancient German word brown ("brown")

Given that the population of medieval Europe did not have much contact with polar bears or pandas, it is logical that peasants associated bears with the brown coloration - which originates from the ancient German word "bera". Bears are also known as "ursines", a word that has even more ancient origins in Proto-Indo-European languages, dating back to 3500 BC.

This obsession with bears is quite natural, given that the first settlers of Eurasia lived in close proximity to cave bears, and sometimes worshiped these beasts as gods.

6. Most bears hibernate in winter.

Because the vast majority of bears live in the high northern latitudes, they need a way to survive the winter months when food is dangerously scarce. Bears go into deep sleep for several months, during which the heart rate and metabolic processes slow down significantly. However, hibernation does not equate to a coma: if a bear is awakened, it can wake up in the middle of its hibernation, and females can even give birth while in deep winter sleep.

There is evidence that cave lions preyed on wintering cave bears during the last ice age. Some of these bears would wake up and kill the intruders.

7 Bears Are Extremely Vocal Animals

Depending on the species, the basic communication needs of a bear can be expressed by seven or eight different "sounds" - snorting, champing, moaning, roaring, barking, growling, purring and coughing. As you may have guessed, the most dangerous sounds for humans are roars and growls, which indicate a frightened or excited animal defending its territory. The bear snorts, usually during the breeding season. Purring is used by cubs to demand attention from their mothers (the sound is somewhat similar to cats, but much louder), and moans express anxiety or a sense of danger.

Giant pandas have a slightly different vocabulary than their bear counterparts; in addition to the sounds described above, they can also chirp, yell, and low.

8. Bears are sexually dimorphic.

Like close relatives, seals and walruses, bears have markedly pronounced sexual dimorphism: males are much larger than females, and the larger the male, the greater the difference in size. (The weight of a male brown bear, for example, is about 500 kg, and females are only slightly more than half its weight.) However, despite the fact that females are smaller than males; they are not at all helpless and quite vigorously protect the cubs from male bears, not to mention any such stupid individuals who decide to interfere in the process of raising cubs.

Male bears sometimes attack and kill cubs of their own species in order to induce females to re-breed.

9. Bears are not suitable for domestication.

During the last 10,000 years, humans have domesticated cats, dogs, pigs, and cattle, so why haven't they domesticated bears, animals that Homo sapiens have coexisted with since the end of the Pleistocene epoch? As described in point number 3, bears are solitary animals, so there is no place for a human owner who wishes to take a dominant position in the hierarchy. In addition, bears have such a varied diet that it would be difficult to stick to, even with a well-tamed animal.

Perhaps most importantly, bears are restless and aggressive, so there are no suitable individuals to keep as pets in your home or yard!

10 Bears Are One Of The Most Endangered Animals On Earth

Considering that early humans worshiped bears as gods, the relationship with the ursines over the past few hundred years has left much to be desired. Bears are particularly susceptible to habitat destruction and sport hunting. They are killed when they encounter people in the wild. To date, the most endangered members of the bear family are pandas (due to deforestation and human encroachment) and polar bears (due to global warming); although the populations of black and brown bears are the least of concern, they may decline significantly as adverse human interactions increase and their habitat shrinks.

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Types of bears

Bears are large and strong animals, with a dense body, a large head and wide powerful paws. In the bear family, 8 species are very similar to each other. Most of them are omnivorous, many fit into hibernation, bears living in forests can climb trees. Bears are common in the Northern Hemisphere, from the North Pole to the jungles of Southeast Asia and in the forest zone of North America. One species is found in South America.

Brown bears were once the masters of all northern forests. But man cut down the forests. Toptygins have nowhere to hide on miserable forest pieces, and now there are a lot of bears only in the endless taiga and in nature reserves. The bears keep alone, each in his own area, where he does not let his neighbors. The bear is very strong: hungry, he will overcome an adult elk, knock down a mighty boar. But bears do not like to hunt, and when there are a lot of berries, nuts and juicy greens in the forest, they almost do not eat meat.

In Alaska (in North America) and Kamchatka at the end of summer, when salmon go to the rivers to spawn, bears go fishing. Brown bears living in different places differ in size: taiga bears are larger than their counterparts from the southern forests. The largest brown bears - grizzlies - live in the north of North America. Bears are "brunettes" and "blonds": some have brown hair, others have light beige, and others are almost black.

For the winter, the bear goes to sleep in a den under a deep eversion, in a large pile of deadwood or in a cave. In the north, bears sleep from October to April; in warmer regions, their winter sleep is shorter. All life processes in a sleeping bear slow down, the temperature drops. Bear on the accumulated fat will last until the arrival of heat. But the sleep of a bear is not as strong as that of small animals. Worried, he will wake up, come out of the lair and roam the forest in an angry manner. The connecting rod bear is the scariest animal in the forest. Hunger pushes him to attack even people. In winter, cubs are born in a bear's den. All winter they suck the milk of a sleeping mother, and in the spring they come out into the light.

Himalayan bear

South of the brown bear, in the mountain forests of the Caucasus, Iran, Afghanistan, Primorye, Japan and China, and in the Himalayan mountains, the Himalayan bear lives. For the color of its coat, it is also called a black bear. And for a white spot on the chest in the shape of a crescent - a moon or white-breasted bear.

Black bears do not hunt, but eat berries, fruits, nuts, acorns, grains, rhizomes and green parts of plants, feast on insects, and eat carrion. Black bears are smaller than brown bears, which allows them to climb trees better. Having reached the fork of the branches, the bear breaks off branches with berries or nuts, eats them up and folds them under him, arranging a comfortable bed. The tree on which the clumsy dined remains almost without a crown. Bears hibernate in the hollows of old trees.

baribal

Baribal bear lives in North America - black with a light end of the muzzle. There are also chocolate and milky white baribals, different coat colors can even be found in siblings. Baribals, like black bears, love plant foods, climb trees and sleep in hollows in winter. Baribal is small and can be prey to a huge grizzly.

About 200 thousand years ago, some brown bears moved from the taiga to the north in search of a new habitat. They began to live in the cold treeless tundra and on the eternal ice of the Arctic. Harsh conditions have changed their appearance. Bears with light fur survived among the snows. So, brightening from generation to generation, the bears turned white. In a large body it is easier to keep warm, and they have become larger than brown brothers. Their fur became thicker and warmer, and their paws, so as not to fall into the snow, became wider. Life by the ocean has made bears become excellent swimmers. In the ice, they forgot about plant foods and turned into predators, eating seal meat, fish, sea birds, and carrion. Thus, a new species was formed - the polar bear, the largest predatory animal in the world.

Polar bears are great wanderers, they roam all their lives on drifting ice, rarely going out on land. Near the ocean, they feel more confident - there is more of the usual food: seals and fish. In a mysterious way, the bears make their way in the darkness of the polar night, with flashes of the northern lights, through snowstorms. Occasionally, these lonely vagabonds get together, chat and play with each other, and then each go his own way. Polar bears do not hibernate, but when there is a shortage of food, they can sleep for a long time in a snow den. In places where snowdrifts are deep, she-bears gather. They make dens in the snow, where, sheltered from the cold and wind, bear cubs give birth. Tiny white lumps will bask under their mother's belly and suck her milk until they are strong enough to accompany their mother on long journeys. Polar bears are listed in the international Red Book.

spectacled bear

The only bear found in the Southern Hemisphere, in the mountains of South America, is the spectacled bear. The rough, shaggy black coat of this bear is decorated with light spots on the chest and around the eyes, where a semblance of white glasses is formed - hence the name of the species.

The spectacled bear is the most mysterious in the bear family. A secretive nocturnal animal, it has been studied very little. It is known that he likes to eat palm leaves, which he breaks off when climbing a tree, but eats leaves on the ground. Its "green table" is diversified by fruits and roots, as well as young deer and guanaco llamas.