The Bear Truth
Learn about these mighty animals
The Bear Essentials
Bears have an incredible sense of smell, which is seven times stronger than that of a bloodhound.
During hibernation, a bear's heart rate drops dramatically, allowing them to go months without eating or drinking.
Not all bears are carnivores. Giant pandas eat mostly bamboo, while polar bears primarily eat seals.
Underneath their white fur, polar bears have black skin that helps them absorb and retain heat.
Bears communicate using a variety of sounds, including roars, growls, and even humming noises from cubs.
Despite their size, grizzly bears can run up to 35 miles per hour, faster than most humans.
Many bears, like black bears, are skilled climbers, while polar bears are powerful swimmers.
Bears use tools like rocks and wood, to scratch their backs or break open food.
Bears are highly intelligent and have excellent problem-solving skills, even remembering food locations.
Most bears are solitary animals, preferring to live alone except during mating season or when raising cubs.
Meet Milo, the Bear
Meet Milo the Bear. Milo wants to sleep during winter, but other animals keep waking him up to ask for favors. Read this heartwarming fable and find out whether the animals Milo helped return a favor.
Bears enter a state of torpor during winter, a lighter form of hibernation, to conserve energy as food becomes scarce. Their body temperature, heart rate, and metabolism drop significantly, allowing them to survive off fat reserves stored during warmer months. Hibernation helps them avoid the need to forage and protects them from predators and harsh weather. While in torpor, bears don’t eat, drink, urinate, or defecate, as their bodies efficiently recycle waste.
Unlike true hibernators, they can still wake if disturbed, and if this happens, they can become grumpy and defensive, particularly mother bears protecting their cubs. This semi-awareness makes them more irritable when woken.
Bears, Bears Everywhere
There are eight species of bears spread across various regions of the world. Bears inhabit North and South America, Europe, and Asia. In North America, the American black bear and the grizzly bear (a subspecies of the brown bear) are common, while the polar bear roams the Arctic. In Asia, the Asiatic black bear, giant panda, and sun bears inhabit forests and mountains, while the sloth bear lives in the Indian subcontinent. South America is home to spectacled bears, the only species native to that region.
Each species has unique characteristics that help them survive in their specific habitats. Polar bears are the largest bear species, are highly adapted to life on sea ice, and are excellent swimmers. Giant pandas feed almost exclusively on bamboo. Sloth bears have long, shaggy fur, are insectivorous, and use their powerful claws to break open termite mounds. Sun bears are the smallest species and have long tongues to extract honey and insects from crevices. Spectacled bears have distinctive facial markings and are predominantly herbivorous.
