I come bearing knowledge

[bearpedia]

About

Hi, I’m here to share bear facts! My inbox is also open for bear questions which I’ll answer to the best of my ability, but I don’t know everything.

[bearpedia]

When a bear hibernates, does it really sleep for a long time and wake up, or does it really wakea up several time in the middle/ during their hibernation? (What if a people tries to disturb a bear from hibernation, does it wakes up or continues to hibernate?)

Bears are often considered not to be "true" hibernators. They enter a lighter state of sleep called torpor which is similar to, but not quite the same thing as hibernation. We often say “hibernation” when we mean torpor, but there is technically a distinction.

Torpor is mainly distinguished from hibernation in that animals in torpor are able to wake up quickly if necessary. This means that a bear in torpor will definitely wake up if disturbed!

It's normal for bears to wake up repeatedly during torpor, but they will not leave their den during the winter months unless they have to (for instance, if the den is flooded). Animals in torpor, like those in hibernation, do not eat, drink, urinate, or defecate.

It should be said that not all bears enter torpor. Like hibernation, torpor exists as a way for animals to survive through the winter months when very little food is available. Bears that live in warmer climates, such as sun bears and Andean bears, therefore do not need to enter torpor. Polar bears also don't need to enter torpor because they're adapted to live in an environment with winter-like conditions year round. Some other bears, such as American black bears and Asian black bears, which can live in a diverse range of climates, may or may not enter torpor depending on where they live.

[bearpedia]

does the glacier bear have any evolutionary adaptations?

The only thing that distinguishes glacier bears from other black bears is their coloration. Glacier bears aren't a unique population, but a variant that is found in certain populations of ordinary black bears, caused by a recessive gene. There is presumably a reason why this gene has been more successful in some populations than in others, so it's possible that the coloration itself could be considered an evolutionary adaptation. At this point researchers don't know what advantage, if any, the glacier bear's coloration provides.

[bearpedia]

sun bears are called honey bears in my country but do they actually eat honey???

also why are they called sun bears like did they name it bc they look like moon bears or

Sun bears get their name from the ring- or crescent-shaped marking they have on their chest, which is said to resemble the color of the sun.

And they do actually eat honey! In fact most bears eat honey from time to time, but for sun bears it's a relatively large portion of their diet. Their 10 inch (25 cm) long tongue helps them extract honey, bees, and bee larvae from beehives.

[bearpedia]

Daily Bear Fact #25

The grizzly-polar bear hybrid, which is rarely found in the wild, has no official name but is known by many unofficial ones. Its names include grolar bear, pizzly bear, grizzlar bear, and nanulak. 

[bearpedia]

Daily Bear Fact #24:

The glacier bear, also called the blue bear, is a color morph of the American black bear that is found in southeast Alaska and northwest British Columbia. Little research has been done on these bears so no population estimates exist and it’s unclear whether or not they constitute a distinct subspecies of the American black bear.

[bearpedia]

Daily Bear Fact #23:

Polar bears are the youngest extant bear species. Evolutionary studies suggest they diverged from brown bears about 150 thousand years ago.

[bearpedia]

Daily Bear Fact #22:

Slovenia has more bears per square kilometer than any other country. Slovenia, which has seen its bear population more than double in the past twenty years, has an average of forty bears per 100 square kilometers.

[protoindoeuropean]

I believe it should be forty (by some estimates fifty) bears per 1000 square kilometers.

[bearpedia]

Yes, this appears to be correct. My source seems to have been mistaken, sorry!

[bearpedia]

Daily Bear Fact #22:

Slovenia has more bears per square kilometer than any other country. Slovenia, which has seen its bear population more than double in the past twenty years, has an average of forty bears per 100 square kilometers.

[bearpedia]

Do you have any favorite bear pictures? <3

these are a few of my favorites, but I also have a blog dedicated to bear pictures: @pictures-of-dogs

[bearpedia]

Can bears be domesticated?

Short answer:

Long answer:

First, I want to explain the difference between domestication and taming, because people tend to get them confused and I’m not sure which you meant.

A wild animal is said to be “tamed” when it has been trained to tolerate human presence and interact with humans safely. The idea behind taming is to cause an animal to “forget” its natural instinct to avoid or be hostile toward humans, but that’s not really possible. “Tamed” animals, such as those living in a zoo, may be able to interact safely in a limited way with people they’re familiar with (i.e. their keepers), but they will never be safe around humans in the same way that, for instance, a dog is; you can take an animal out of the wild, but you can’t take the wild out of an animal. That’s why dangerous wild animals like bears can never be safely kept as pets.

Domestication is the process of changing an animal species over the course of many generations, mostly through selective breeding. Animals that we think of as domesticated are that way because we have spent hundreds/thousands of years selectively breeding individuals with the traits that we want them to have. This is how it’s safe to have dogs as pets even though they’re descended from wolves, which are definitely not safe to have as pets.

That’s a highly simplified explanation, but for the purpose of this post it should be good enough.

I suppose any species technically could be domesticated given enough time, but in most cases doing so would be extremely difficult, not worthwhile, or both. There are a number of reasons why bears are a bad candidate for domestication, ranging from their relatively solitary nature, to the high cost of keeping a large enough number of them in captivity, to the fact that we can’t easily control their breeding.

If the idea is to turn bears into pets, it would mean changing their very nature, and that would probably take thousands of years if it’s possible at all. I think any attempt to do so would be misguided and would not pan out well for more reasons than I can list.

So my answer is that no, for all practical purposes, bears cannot be domesticated. Simply put, bears cannot be and will never be pets.

[bearpedia]

Daily Bear Fact #21:

Sun bears are the smallest bear species, with a body length of around 4 to 5 feet and a maximum weight of about 150 pounds.

[bearpedia]

The big boy? Pleistocene Polar[/Brown?] Bear? Ursus maritimus tyrannus? Got any cool facts or favourite pics? =0c Is there any consensus on Polar vs Brown? I’ve seen it referred to as both, but more often as Polar

I actually had not heard of the Pleistocene polar bear prior to receiving this ask! It seems like information on it is scarce because we only know of its existence from a single fossil, a fragment of the animal’s ulna.

I don’t know enough to weigh in on whether the fossil came from a polar bear or a brown bear. All I know is that initial research suggested it was from a polar bear, but a later reanalysis, which has not been published, suggests it came from a brown bear instead. What this tells me is that we don’t know for sure if “ursus maritimus tyrannus” actually existed.

[bearpedia]

Daily Bear Fact #20:

American black bears are by far the most common bear species, with a total population of at least 600 thousand. The next most common bear species, the brown bear, has a total population of only around 200 thousand.

[bearpedia]

Daily Bear Fact #19:

Though there have been many unverified sightings, there have only been eight confirmed grolar bears (grizzly-polar bear hybrids) found in the wild. All eight were descended from a single female polar bear who mated with two male grizzly bears.

[bearpedia]

Daily Bear Fact #18:

Polar bear hair shafts are hollow, which allow them to reflect light better. They’re also transparent, but appear white because they scatter light of all wavelengths—the same reason ice can appear white. These qualities help polar bears absorb more heat through their skin.

[bearpedia]

Daily Bear Fact #17:

The Atlas bear was a subspecies of the brown bear that once inhabited Northern Africa. The population declined largely due to overhunting during the Roman Empire, but they finally went extinct in the late 19th century.