Observation of bear’s life (proving they are not monsters, they eat berries too), was the action of learning how the wild animal – bears – live their life. Bear spread in varieties of species, which we could see until this present day (and hope they could survive in a long period in the future). There are many bear species that lived and still existed until now, such as the great panda, American black bear, brown bear, Asian black bear, water bear, the polar bear, and etc. I believed many of you have heard the names above, and yes, they all lived in the free wildlife.
To learn deeper about all these wild animals species, here’s the main topic today, Observation of bear’s life (proving they are not monsters, they eat berries too).
The Bear
Bears categorized as Ursidae family and known as carnivoran mammalian. This animal is a little bit interesting, they were equated as doglike carnivorans which is a quite different from other carnivorans beast. There are 8 different species of bears that have been recognized and spread worldwide in different surface of natural habitats; from Asia, Europe, South America, and North America – throughout the South Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere. The modern bear (bear this day) has unfamiliar characteristics with their ancestors; they have shaggy hair, large body, short tail, stocky legs, nonretractile claws, and small rounded ears.
Furthermore, out of eight species, six of them was recognized as omnivorous; and the two others, the polar bear and the great panda was claimed themselves as certain type: the polar bears are purely carnivorous, and the great panda would and only eat bamboo for the rest of their lives. However, bear has sensitive and strong sense of smell; they are both of nocturnal and diurnal animal and typical of solitary animals.
Do not mistaken bear as lazy and sluggish animal just because their big and heavy body, because the fact might harm you if you’re not carefully behave in front of them. You must understand that bears are the excellent swimmers, runners, and climbers; a lot of self guideline that had been constructed by professional on how you would survive from bear attack, escape from their pursuit, and how to behave around this particular animal. So, the wise move is to respect their territory.
However, in bear’s life there’s a term which called as hibernation period (which a lot of time I frequently used it too). Hibernation is a long period of animals or plants spending the winter season in dormant state, or simply just inactive and chill out indoors; and they used logs and caves as shelters. After this, we would go deeper than before; so, stay focus, people!
Bear Characteristic
Bear is one of the largest terrestrial of carnivora animal on earth; for instance, polar bear is claimed as the largest species with recorded information of size about 2.5 to 3 meters and weight about 350 to 700 kg. Furthermore, the sun bear was declared as the smallest species of bear which owned the height about 1 to 1,5 meters and weight approximately around 25 to 65 kg; all of these informations was based on the modern species of bear.
In prehistorical, the largest bear species was known lived in the South and North America; estimated weight of prehistory bear was weighed about 1,600 kg or equally about 3,500 lb; when they were stood up, the estimated tall is 3.4 meters or equally about 11 feet. The majority of bear gained fat in summer and autumn seasons, and would lose the weight around the winter. Bear is sexually dimorphic and just like other typical animals, male bear is larger than the female. They have short limbs, thick bones as they rely the most to their power rather than the speed to support the bulk.
Natural Habitats and Distribution
Primarily between North Hemisphere and concentrate among Europe, North America, and Asia, there are about sixty countries that became the home of extant bear; in the Andean region, lived native bear of South America. Furthermore, the Atlas bear – the brown bear’s subspecies lived and distributed in North Africa around 1870, but not they were extinct; and the Southeast Asia is the concentration of sun bear distribution.
From the western side of North America, western Europe, and eastwards of Asia become the most widespread areas of the brown bear. The polar bear – as we know – only restricted in Antarctica region, and North America become the restricted area of the American black bear; other remaining species of bear was classified as the Asian. The bear range of habitats is included broadleaf and coniferous forest, tropical rainforest, montane grassland, steppes, alpine scree slopes, prairies, and in particular case of polar bear is ice floes in Arctic tundra.
Behavioral of Bear
The dirual species of bears are the American black bears and brown bears, these bears would active during the day and then would spend the night foraging the meal. Most other species of bears was nocturnal animals, they actively during the night. The female would feed the cub in daylight purposely to avoid the eyes of other nocturnal predators. Furthermore, bears perhaps the most anti-social among other carnivora; they purposely solitary themselves from other species of animals.
But, although they try as best to avoid each other, fight could be still happen on purpose to maintaining dominance. As I mentioned before, bears had a very high functional sense of smell; they could smell carcasses even from several kilometers. However, most bears are omnivorous, they eat meat and a larger amount of plants. Their main diet menus are: berries, leaves, carrion, fishes, roots, insects; they were armed and supported by their teeth structural that could adapt with all the diet menus.
Bears are smart animal, they would only eat the plants at its best condition, and they would avoid old leaves, grasses, or sedges. The sun bear would lick up the honey with his long tongue, and it was the first idea of Winnie the Pooh character. The both of black bears and brown bear sometime would prey the young deer and bovids. Furthermore, the polar bear would eat fishes, gulls, carcasses, and sometime Arctic foxes; and for the adorable great panda, we knew that this particular bear only eat sweet bamboo.
So, that’s it, people. I hope you enjoyed the read and see you again in another articles!