Welcome to Animal DNA, our extraordinary expedition through the animal
kingdom. We'll explore the unique traits and
characteristics of animals of all kinds, how species relate to one
another, and ways in which they survive and thrive in their diverse
environments around the planet. And
so our journey begins.
Today, our show will be both beautiful and dangerous, as we
will get to know the mighty bear.
Bears can be found almost anywhere.
In the frozen north and in the forests of North America.
Asia, Europe, and South America.
Bears or uridae are part of the uridae family of
omnivorous mammals. They're large
animals that eat fruits, roots, insects, and meat.
Both diurnal or nocturnal, they have an excellent sense of
smell. They have heavy bodies,
powerful jaws, and are among the largest carnivores inhabiting
the planet. Although somewhat
clumsy in appearance, their sturdy bodies with short
tails can run, climb, and swim as
the situation warrants.
Caves and large hollow logs are some of the dens they use, especially
during the winter hibernation period. When they remain in a semi
dormant state that can last up to 100 days.
With massive heads, a bear's rounded ears and eyes may seem small in
proportion.
Bears produce a range of vocal and non-vocal sounds such as
clicks, grunts, and snorts.
Bears generally range in size from 8 to 10 ft in length.
And weigh between 55 to as much as 1300 pounds
in the case of the gigantic polar bear.
Males are usually 20% larger than females.
The 8 major bear species are popularly known as.
Brown Sloth
Malayan Panda polar
spectacled. Asiatic black.
An American black First, let's
meet the American black bear, Ursus American.
This animal inhabits the humid forest areas of North America.
In 32 states of the United States. Northern
Mexico and Canada. In the east,
they are usually black with brown muzzles. In the
west, its color varies and can be black,
brown, cinnamon, or even light yellow.
Along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska, there are two colorful
forms of black bears the whitish ermode bear or
spirit bear. And the blue gray glacier bear.
It is estimated that in the 1500s more than 2 million black bears
roamed the forests of North America.
Today the number has dropped to only about 200,000.
The American black bear is considered a medium sized bear.
The male reaches a height of 9 ft and weighs about 620
pounds. Black bears are excellent
climbers. Their claws give them great grip, and the branches
offer youngsters safety from predators.
They're also good swimmers and will readily enter water in search of fish.
American black bears are omnivores. Most of their diet is
plant-based. They mainly
feed on vegetation including herbs, grasses,
roots, buds, shoots, honey,
nuts, fruit, berries, and seeds.
You'll also eat fish, small mammals, and insects.
Most bears become active a half hour before sunrise.
Take a nap or two during the day. And go down for
the night an hour or two after sunset.
Though some bears are active mainly at night to avoid people or other
bears. American black bears
are solitary animals except for mothers with cubs.
They mate during the months of June and July. And the cubs
are born in January or February.
Bears are adorable when they are cubs, but when brown or grizzly
bears, known also as Usus arctus, reach adulthood,
they can be very intimidating.
The brown bear has a coloration of varying shades from very
dark to light okra and gray.
The head is massive with a broad forehead and elongated
muzzle, rounded ears, and wet nose.
It has a hump above the front legs.
The feet have 5 toes with non-retractable claws.
Generally, male brown bears are larger than their female counterparts.
One of the subspecies of the brown bear, which is among the largest on the planet,
is the grizzly bear Ursus arctos aurilis.
Which inhabits the highlands of North America.
It is a solitary animal except during the salmon's spawning
season when it joins other bears in streams and coastal areas to
feed.
Believe it or not, bears are related to the dog family by a certain
resemblance that mixes characteristics of domestic dogs with
wolves and foxes. Members of the dog family
are exclusively carnivores, but most bears are omnivores
eating almost anything from fruits, flowers,
vegetables, and insects.
Polar bears are the exception. They are the only carnivorous
bear. Their favorite food, seals.
Although bears have good hearing and eyesight, at least as good as ours.
It is their sense of smell that is truly extraordinary.
Bears use their sense of smell to find food and to gather information about the
world around them. A polar bear might
smell carrion such as a dead whale from 20 miles away.
We'll be right back with more animal DNA.
We're back with more animal DNA. Let's see if you can answer
this trivia question. What is the world's largest land
predator? A tiger. B
lion. C. polar bear. The
elephant The answer is
C, the polar bear. The biggest land
predator animal currently alive is the polar bear. These
massive Arctic creatures can grow to be over 8 ft
tall. They weigh about 1/10 as much as a large
elephant, roughly 1300 pounds.
Now we are gonna meet the spectacled bearremaruss Ornaus,
also called the Andean bear or South American bear.
This bear is the only bear in South America. They live in the Andes
Mountains and outlying areas from western Venezuela to Bolivia.
The forests of the Andes are very different from the forests of the north.
This bear's home is the rainforest and cloud forest.
Although spectacled bears, Andean bears, or South American
bears, also known as ukumari and
jukumari, are medium sized bears, they are the 2nd
largest land mammal in all of South America.
Their markings are what really distinguish them. This bear's
spectacles are like a pair of glasses, giving each individual a
distinctive set of markings.
No two animals have the same facial markings. These glasses
are unique. In the same way that no zebra has the same
stripe pattern as another.
Or no human shares the same fingerprints.
Spectacled bears remarkus ornaus are not the only bears found in
the southern hemisphere. There is another bear that lives below the
equator. The Malayan bear Eartos
Malianus is the smallest member of the bear family.
Weighing an average of 100 pounds.
It also has the shortest and sleekest coat of all bears.
An adaptation to the warm climate of the lowlands where they live in the
subtropical regions of Southeast Asia.
Malayan bears are also called sun bears and honey bears.
As the long tongue of this animal is perfectly suited for foraging for
honey in bee hives and inside trees.
They enjoy the sun, but that is not why they are called sun bears.
Rather, it is because of the pale orange yellow horseshoe shaped
markings on their chests. In folklore, it is said
to represent the rising sun. Another bear with very
distinctive markings is the panda Aluropida
melaleuca. Their black and white fur
with black eyes and ears on a white fur face have made
these animals one of the most iconic in the world.
Giant pandas are not quite giants when compared to brown or black
bears, but even so, they can weigh more than 200 pounds.
They live in the dense bamboo forests of western China.
Their diet is limited. They only eat bamboo that grows where they live.
It took biologists a long time to decide whether the giant panda was actually
a bear or whether it was more closely related to the raccoon family.
But thanks to DNA testing, the verdict is that the giant panda is a
bear. Which is related to the American black bear.
Brown bear, Malayan bear, spectacle bear, and
also polar bear. Although bears vary in
size, they all have strong bodies, powerful jaws, and are
covered with thick fur.
Including our friend the panda.
The Asiatic black bear or Tibetan bear Ursus
Tibetanus, also called the Himalayan bear, inhabits
the forests and mountainous areas of Asia from Iran to Japan.
It measures between 4 and 6 ft in length with a weight of
200 to 440 pounds in the case of males.
And about 200 pounds in the case of females, making it a medium
sized bear. Its
mantle of black hair all over the body is longer on the neck with
a V-shaped mark on the chest which is cream colored.
We'll be right back with more animal DNA.
We're back with more animal DNA. Let's see if you can answer this
trivia question. Which continent is not
home to a bear? A. Australia,
B Asia. C South America.
D Europe. The answer
is A, Australia.
Bears are not the neighbors of African elephants or giraffes
or even rhinoceroses. And we also
won't find bears in the neighborhood of kangaroos or koalas in their
eucalyptus trees. So if you said Australia, you
got it right. But you may be
asking, aren't koalas a type of bear?
Sometimes koalas are referred to as koala bears, but they are not
bears. They are marsupials, pouched mammals, just
like kangaroos. The
word bear was probably linked to koalas because this animal looks more like a
teddy bear than a real bear. But other than the fact that koalas and bears
are mammals, there is no relation between them.
But what about Antarctica? Did we forget the polar bear?
Actually, no. While the polar bear is an Arctic bear, this
mighty bear lives in the icy north near the North Pole and not in the
south where penguins live.
You'll never see these animals together in the wild.
Penguins live near the South Pole. While polar bears are the
predator of the southern edge of the Arctic ice near the North Pole.
The polar bear inhabits the top of the world where there are also seals,
walruses, arctic foxes, and beluga whales.
Polar bears spend most of their time on coastal land near open water and are
solitary animals. Although we have seen how other
bear species love the water, the polar bear is the true aquatic
bear. Although they are terrestrial
animals, in fact, their scientific name, Ursus
Maritimus translates as maritime bear.
They are extraordinary swimmers that can move through the water about 6
MPH, using only their front legs to move.
The polar bear's front paws are like oars that allow them to move through the
water quickly.
The hind legs act as rudders to direct where they are going.
They dive with their eyes open and nostrils closed.
Polar bears can remain submerged underwater for a full 2 minutes.
The polar bear's head is small, unlike the huge round head of the brown bear.
Polar bears are born on land but spend most of their lives floating on large
blocks of ice where they hunt seals.
They swim from ice block to ice block.
When the ice melts in summer, polar bears have a difficult time hunting.
They can live without eating for more than a month using their own body fat
for energy.
When polar bears are out of the water, they walk with their paws in an arc
to keep their balance on the slippery ice.
The soles of their paws are covered with fur, and as all bears are
plantigrade like us, they walk with their feet flat on the
ground, lifting the heel and sole of the foot with each step they
take.
Perhaps the most surprising fact about the polar bear is that it is not
actually white.
Each hair is hollow and reflects light to make the bear blend in with the
snow and ice. The polar bear's skin is
actually black to absorb heat, and its long hollow
hairs act as insulation.
When foraging for food, polar bears tend to move slowly, but
this does not mean that they cannot run if necessary.
They're the best hunters of all bear species because they are almost
exclusively carnivores and must catch other animals for food.
Instead of relying on fruit, vegetables,
honey, or bamboo like other bears.
Brown bears and black bears handle lack of food in a slightly different way.
They hibernate.
Which also allows them to use body fat for energy.
Their metabolism decreases, but their body temperature stays constant.
They remain in a very deep sleep until winter is over
and the vegetation returns to the forest. The
salmon starts swimming again and it's time to wake up.
The sloth bear Meursus Ursinus is mainly
nocturnal and lives in the grasslands and lowland forests of
India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
Like its relatives, this bear is also omnivorous. They are
distinguished from other species of uridae by a V-shaped band of white
hair on the chest and their elongated snout with a very
prominent nose and lips. Their legs are curved
inward with long claws for digging rather than for catching and
tearing animals. Each of the
bears we've met today is unique. All are worthy
of our respect and attention. From a
distance. And with that, our journey
has come to an end. See you next time on Animal
DNA where we humans decode all the secrets of our friends in the animal
kingdom in order to learn more about them and a little bit more about