BearFossil range:
Early Miocene - Recent |
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Kodiak Brown Bear |
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Scientific classification |
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Genera |
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Ailuropoda |
A bear
is a large mammal in the family Ursidae of the order Carnivora. The
adjective "ursine" is used to describe things of a
bear-like nature. The collective noun for a group of them is a sleuth.
Modern English "bear"
derives from Old English "bera", which itself derives from
Proto-Germanic "*beron" meaning "the brown one".
(Compare Old Norse "björn", Dutch "beer" and
German "Bär" all meaning "bear").
Both Greek ("arktos")
and Latin ("ursus") have retained the Proto-Indo-European root
word for "bear" ("*rtko") but it was ritually
replaced in the northern branches of the Indo-European languages (The Germanic,
Baltic, Celtic and Slavic branches) because of the hunters' taboo on the names
of wild animals. For example the Irish word for "bear"
translated means "the good calf", in Welsh it translates as
"honey-pig", in Lithuanian it means "the licker"
and Russian "медведь" literally means "one
who leads to honey".
Common characteristics of
bears include a short tail, acute senses of smell and hearing, five
non-retractable claws per paw, and long, dense, shaggy fur.
Bears have large bodies and
powerful limbs. They are capable of standing up on their hind legs. They have
broad paws, long snouts, and round ears. Their teeth are bared for defense and
used as tools, depending on the diet of the bear. Their claws are used for
ripping, digging, and catching. Black bears, and likely other bears, have color
vision.
Depending on the species,
bears can have 32 to 42 teeth. Bear teeth are not specialized for killing their
prey like those of cats. Normal canine teeth in a carnivore are generally
large, pointed and used for killing prey, while bears' canine teeth are
relatively small and typically used in defense or as tools. Bears' molar teeth
are broad, flat and are used to shred and grind plant food into small
digestible pieces.
Bears have four limbs that
end in paws. Each paw has five long, sharp claws that are not retractable.
These claws can be used to climb trees, rip open termite nests and beehives,
dig up roots, or catch prey, depending on the species. While most carnivores
tend to walk on their toes in a way that is adapted for speed, bears have a
plantigrade stance. They walk with their weight on the soles of their feet,
with the heel touching the ground, while the claws of the arm are used more for
balance. Although slower than most carnivores, a running bear can reach speeds
of up to 50 km/h (30 mph).
A bear's fur is often long
and shaggy. Fur color varies among species, ranging from white, blonde or
cream, black and white, to all black or all brown. Colors of a bear's fur can
also vary within species. For example, American black bears may be black,
brown, reddish-brown, or bluish-black. Several species, such as the sun bear
and spectacled bear have a light-colored chest with facial markings.
In all bear species, males
are larger than females, but the difference between sexes varies and is
greatest in the largest species. Large male polar bears may weigh twice as much
as females, while smaller male and female bears are much more similar in
weight. A bear's life span seems to last about 25 to 40 years. Bears living in
the wild tend to die younger than their zoo counterparts.
Bears live in a variety of
habitats from the tropics to the Arctic and from forests to snowfields. They
are mainly omnivorous, although some have a more specialised diet, such as
polar bears. They eat lichens, roots, nuts, and berries. They can also go to a
river or other body of water to capture fish. Bears will commonly travel far
for food. Hunting times are usually in the dusk or the dawn except when humans
are nearby.
Bears generally lead
solitary lives, except for mothers attending her cubs, or males and females
during mating season. Bears form temporary groups only when food is plentiful
in a small area. Alaskan brown bears group in the same area to feed on salmon
during the annual salmon runs, when the fish swim upriver to reach their
spawning grounds. Other bears may live alone but exist in a social network. A
male and female may live in an overlapping home range, each defending their
range from other bears of the same sex. Male young usually leave their mothers
to live in other areas, but females often live in an area that overlaps that of
their mother.
Bears travel over large
territories in search of food, remembering the details of the landscape they
cover. They use their excellent memories to return to locations where food was
plentiful in past years or seasons. Most bears are able to climb trees to chase
prey or gain access to additional vegetation. The only exceptions are polar
bears and large adult brown bears, whose heavy weight makes it difficult to
climb trees.
Some of the larger species,
such as the polar bear and the grizzly bear, are dangerous to humans,
especially in areas where they have become used to people. For the most part,
bears are shy and are easily frightened of humans. They will, however, defend
their cubs ferociously if a situation calls for it.
The bear's courtship period
is very brief. Bears reproduce seasonally, usually after a period of inactivity
similar to hibernation. Cubs are born toothless, blind, and bald. The cubs of
brown bears, usually born in litters of 1–3, will typically stay with the
mother for two full seasons. They feed on their mother's milk through the
duration of their relationship with their mother, although as the cubs continue
to grow, nursing becomes less frequent and learn to begin hunting with the
mother. They will remain with the mother for approximately three years, until
she enters the next cycle of estrus and drives the cubs off. Bears will reach
sexual maturity in five to seven years. Bears are generally solitary creatures
and will not stay close together for long periods of time. Exceptions have been
regularly observed; siblings recently on their own, and subadult bears of
similar age and status will spend a significant amount of time in informal
social groups.
Despite their large size,
bears are capable of moving through wooded or rugged terrain while making very
little noise. They may live in surprisingly close proximity with humans.
Bears will generally avoid
contact with humans, and are usually aware of a human's presence long before
the human is aware of the bear. As a result, encounters are typically avoidable
and rare. However, bears are opportunistic feeders, and will generally take
food where it is available. When humans provide feeding opportunities, such as
left out garbage, food stored outside, or deliberate feeding, the chance of
confrontation escalates. As a bear begins to associate human presence with
food, it may lose its shyness and pose an increasing risk to humans. Conflicts
may also arise in situations where the bear regards a human as an immediate
threat to itself, its cubs, or food cache (which is one reason that found
animal carcasses should be avoided). In a chance encounter with a bear, the
best course of action is usually to back away slowly in the direction that you
came, speaking in a loud, calm tone to make sure the bear is aware of your
presence and will not be caught off guard. Raise your hands above your
shoulders to make yourself appear larger. The bear will rarely become
aggressive and head towards you. In order to protect yourself, some suggest
passively lying on the ground and waiting for the bear to lose interest. This
does not often work. Another approach is to constantly maintain an obstacle
between you and the bear, such as a thick tree or boulder. A person is much
more agile and quick than a bear allowing him or her to respond to a bear's
clockwise or counter-clockwise movement around the obstacle and move
accordingly. The bear's frustration will eventually cause disinterest. One can
then move away from the bear to a new obstacle and continue this until he or
she has created a safe distance from the bear. When encountering a bear, one
should never look directly into the bear's eyes. This action can be
misconstrued by many wild animals as an aggressive act. Bears can climb up and
shake trees, therefore, climbing a tree to escape a bear is not advisable.
Pepper spray that contains
capsaicin, or extracts of the tropical plant genus Capsicum, can be effective
if sprayed from a short distance into the faces and eyes of bears. This works
against both black bears and grizzlies in most situations. However, pepper
spray cannot be used for bear-proofing. Spraying it on your clothes or camping
equipment does not repel bears. It should only be used as a last resort when
under attack by a bear.
Many bears of northern
regions are assumed to hibernate in the winter. While many bear species do go
into a physiological state called hibernation or winter sleep, it is not true
hibernation. In true hibernators, body temperatures drop to near ambient and
heart rate slows drastically, but the animals periodically rouse themselves to
urinate or defecate and to eat from stored food. The body temperature of bears,
on the other hand, drops only a few degrees from normal and heart rate slows
only slightly. They do not wake normally during this "hibernation",
and therefore do not eat, drink, urinate or defecate the entire period. Higher
body heat and being easily roused may be adaptations, because females bear cubs
during this winter sleep.
Laws have been passed in
many areas of the world to protect bears from hunters or habitat destruction.
Bears in captivity have been forced to be trained to dance, box, or ride
bicycles; however, this use of the animals became controversial in the late
20th century. In cartoons, circus bears are frequently depicted riding
unicycles.
The brown bear is Finland's
national animal. In the United States, the black bear is the state animal of
Louisiana, New Mexico, and West Virginia; the grizzly bear is the state animal
of both Montana and California.
Kodiak bears are the
largest type, and in fact one of the largest extant carnivores, though polar
bears are the heaviest. Sun bears are the smallest, only the size of a large
dog. The constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor represent bears.
Many people enjoy hunting
bears and eating them. Their meat is dark and stringy, like a tough cut of
beef. In Cantonese cuisine, bear paws are considered a delicacy. The peoples of
China, Japan, and Korea use bears' body parts and secretions (notably their
gallbladders and bile) as part of traditional Chinese medicine. Thousands of
bile bears are farmed for their bile in China, Vietnam, and Korea.
Asiatic black bears might be classified as
genus Selenarctos.
The genera Melursus
and Helarctos are included in the genus Ursus. The Asiatic Black
Bear and the Polar Bear used to be placed in their own genera, Selenarctos
and Thalarctos.
A number of hybrids have
been bred between American Black, Brown and Polar Bears (see Ursinae hybrids).
Bears are members of the
order Carnivora, suborder Caniformia, and family Ursidae. Other members of the
Caniformia include wolves and other dog-like mammals (family Canidae), weasels,
badgers and allies (family Mustelidae), raccoons (family Procyonidae), and
walruses (family Odobenidae), seals (family Phocidae), and sea lions (family
Otariidae). Although bears are often described as having evolved from a
dog-like ancestor, their closest living relatives are the pinnipeds (walruses,
seals, and sea lions).
The origins of the bears
can be traced back to the raccoon-sized, dog-like Cephalogale from the
middle Oligocene and early Miocene (approximately 20-30 million years ago) of
Europe. Cephalogale gave rise to a lineage of early bears, the genus Ursavus.
This genus radiated in Asia and ultimately gave rise to the first true bears
(genus Ursus) in Europe, 5 million years ago. Extinct bear genera
include Arctodus, Agriarctos, Agriotherium, Plionarctos
and Indarctos.
Although there has
previously been much discussion as to whether the Giant Panda belongs to the
bear family or the raccoon family, recent DNA analyses have shown that the
Giant Panda is a member of the Family Ursidae and as such is more closely
related to other bears.[citation needed] The status of the
Red Panda remains uncertain, but many experts, including Wilson and Reeder,
classify it as a member of the bear family. Others place it with the raccoons
in Procyonidae or in its own family, the Ailuridae. The many similarities
between the two pandas are thought to represent convergent evolution for
feeding primarily on bamboo.
There is also evidence
that, unlike their neighbors elsewhere, the Brown Bears of Alaska's ABC islands
are more closely related to Polar Bears than they are to other Brown Bears in
the world. Researchers Gerald Shields and Sandra Talbot of the University of
Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Arctic Biology studied the DNA of several samples
of the species and found that their DNA is different from that of other Brown
Bears. The researchers discovered that their DNA was unique compared to Brown Bears
anywhere else in the world. The discovery has shown that while all other Brown
Bears share a Brown Bear as their closest relative, those of Alaska's ABC
Islands differ and share their closest relation with the Polar Bear.[1] There
is also supposed to be a very rare large bear in China called the Blue Bear,
which presumably is a type of black bear. This animal has never been
photographed.
The saddled
"bear of St Corbinian" the emblem of Freising, here incorporated in
the arms of Pope Benedict XVI
Some evidence has been
brought to bear of prehistoric bear worship, see Arctic, Arcturus, Great Bear,
Berserker, Kalevala. Anthropologists such as Joseph Campbell have regarded this
as a common feature in most of the fishing and hunting-tribes. The prehistoric
Finns, along with most Finno-Ugric peoples, considered the bear as the spirit
of one's forefathers. This is why the bear was a greatly respected animal, with
several euphemistic names. There has been evidence about early bear worship in
China and among the Ainu culture as well. In the Korean mythology, Korean
people identifies bear as their ancestor and symbolic animal; also several
other Tungusic people consider bear as their ancestor animal.
In addition, the Proto-Indo-European
word for bear, *hr̥ktos (ancestral to the Greek arktos,
Latin ursus, Welsh arth (c.f. Arthur), Sanskrit *ṛkṣa,
Hittite hartagga) seems to have been subject to taboo deformation or
replacement (as was the word for wolf, wlkwos), resulting in
the use of numerous unrelated words with meanings like "brown one"
(English bruin) and "honey-eater" (Slavic medved). Thus
four separate Indo-European language groups do not share the same PIE root. The
theory of the bear taboo is taught to almost all beginning students of
Indo-European and historical linguistics; the putative original PIE word for
bear is itself descriptive, because a cognate word in Sanskrit is rakshas,
meaning "harm, injury" [2].
Numerous cities around the
world have adopted the bear as a symbol, notably the Swiss capital Bern, which
takes its name from the German for bear, bär. The bear is also the
name-emblem of Berlin bärlein meaning small bear. Bears are a common
symbol of heraldry (e.g. Rawa Coat of Arms, Bernhardt coat of arms). In the
arms of the bishopric of Freising (illustration, right) the bear is the
dangerous totem animal tamed by Saint Corbinian and made to carry his civilized
baggage over the mountains: the allegory of the civilizing influence of Christianity
is inescapable. A bear also features prominently in the legend of Saint
Romedius, who is also said to have tamed one of these animals and had the same
bear carry him from his hermitage in the mountains to the city of Trento.
The bear is a common
national symbol for Russia (as well as the Soviet Union) and even Germany. It
was used in the Ronald Reagan political ad "Bear in the woods." A
subspecies of Grizzly Bear is featured on the Flag of California, first flown
in 1846 during the Bear Flag Revolt. Also, the bear, the bruin, or specific
types of bears are popular nicknames or mascots, e.g. for sports teams (Chicago
Bears,Boston Bruins); and a bear cub was mascot of the 1980 Summer Olympics.
The physical attributes and
behaviors of bears are commonly used in figures of speech in English. In the
stock market, a bear market is a period of declining prices. Pessimistic
forecasting or negative activity is said to be bearish (due to the
stereotypical posture of bears looking downwards), and one who expresses
bearish sentiment is a bear. Its opposite is a bull market, and bullish
sentiment from bulls. In CB slang, "bear" (or
"smokey", in reference to Smokey Bear) is a nickname for highway
patrol. In gay slang, the term "bear" refers to male individuals who
possess physical attributes much like a bear, such as a heavy build, abundant
body hair, and commonly facial hair. To "try like a bear" means to
try your hardest to catch the attention of a certain lady. The harder you try,
the better the bear you are. A bear hug is typically a tight hug that
involves wrapping one's arms around another person, often leaving that person's
arms immobile. The Chicago Bears, a United States football team, are often
referred to as "The Monsters of the Midway," a term that alludes to
imagery of bears as monsters, or frightening creatures.
In the United States many
children have stuffed animals in the form of bears.
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bear&action=history