Animal Monday is an interactive post for you and your children/students. Full of fun facts, photos, videos, games, and books to read for further fun. Leave a comment if you enjoyed the post!
BEARS
I bet you have a cute, cuddly teddy bear at home. One you snuggle with at night, or one that sits on your shelf and watches over you. But what are bears really like?
Are there different kinds of bears? What do they look like?
There are many species of bear:
brown bear
American black bear
Asian black bear
sun bear
giant panda
sloth bear
polar bear
and spectacled bear.
Did you know there were so many types of bears? Which ones did you already know? Which ones were new to you?
Can you describe the similarities and differences between the different types of bears? Think about traits such as color, size, snout (nose), and ?? Which type of bear has a distinctive shoulder hump? What else do you notice?
Where do they live?
It depends on the type of bear what environment they call home. Do you know where polar bears live? That's right at the North Pole (the name "polar" bear helps you remember!) It is also called the Arctic Circle and consists of Northern Canada, Alaska, Russia, Norway, and Greenland.
Polar bears are the only type of bear to live in that harsh climate. So where do the rest live?
American black bears live anywhere from the tundras of Canada and Alaska all the way to Mexico and Central America. Asian black bears live in Asia. Black bears live
You can find brown bears in North America, Europe and Asia. Some brown bears live in Alaska. Brown bears like to stay in meadows, mountains, and river valleys.
Giant Panda bears live in China. It is considered endangered, as there are only about a thousand left in the wild. The Giant Panda's habitat is under attack. You can see at the end of this post some places where you can help with bear habitat conservation.
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| Giant Panda lives in China. |
Asiatic bears live in eastern and southern Asia. They live in mountainous and forests. Asiatic bears are also known as Himalayan bears or Tibetan black bears. They like to spend time in the trees and even make nests in them!
Sun bears like tropical climates and can be found in the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia.
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| Sun bears in a tree. |
Spectacled bears live in the Andes mountains of South America.
Sloth bears live in the forests and grasslands of India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Nepal.
What do bears eat?
Bears are both mammals (warm-blooded) and omnivores (they eat meat and plants). A brown bear loves to eat salmon from the river. He catches it with his strong jaws and claws.
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| Brown bear catching a salmon. |
Polar bears have to eat a lot to store up fat for the very cold winters. Their favorite meal is seal.
Sloth bears use their unusually long tongues to eat termites.
Panda bears absolutely love bamboo. They will eat up to 60 lbs. of bamboo a day! Bamboo is a type of plant that grows naturally in Asia, where Panda bears are from. It looks like this:
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| Bamboo, a Giant Panda's menu. |
Bears are also scavengers. They will eat animals that have died during the winter and were preserved in ice. They will eat fruits, nuts, berries, insects, carrion, honey, sap, roots, grass, and small animals they might happen to catch.
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| Black bear foraging for berries. |
What is a baby bear called?
A baby bear is called a cub. Usually a mama cub has two cubs at a time. The cubs stay with the mama bear for about 3 years and then they are ready to be on their own. During those 3 years, the cubs follow the mother bear and learn from her survival techniques such as how to catch food, how to climb trees, and how to survive without her help.
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| Spectacled bear cub |
Bear cubs are very playful and love to explore. They also enjoy play fighting with each other. Play fighting is important to cubs because it teaches them to protect themselves.
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| Polar bear cubs playing. |
Why do bears hibernate in the winter?
Do you know what hibernate means? It means to take a long nap in the winter. Bears take long naps in the winter because food is very scarce. So they store up energy by going into a deep sleep. They don't wake up to eat or even to go to the bathroom! When spring comes, the bears and her new cubs (which she will wake up to have in January or February) come out and are famished. Famished means they are very, very hungry. Luckily, now that it is spring, the animals are out and about once more and it is easier to find something to chow down on.
What are other fun facts about bears?
Brown bears are mainly nocturnal.
Brown bears are very curious animals. They sometimes show up at camping sights and rummage through people's belongings that have been left outside. It is not safe to try to interact with a bear, even if it comes up to your campsite!
Bears have an amazing sense of smell. They can smell food, their cubs, and danger from miles away.
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| Open Wide! |
Koalas are not bears. They are marsupials, like kangaroos.
Polar bears are the world's largest land predators. Male polar bears can grow up to be 10 feet tall and weigh over 1400 pounds. Females can reach 7 feet and weigh 650 pounds. On the flip side, the sun bears are one of the smallest bears, with males reaching only 4.5 feet and weighing in at 100 lbs.
A polar bear's fur is not actually white. Each hair is a hollow tube and each tube reflects the light, making it appear white in color.
The sloth bear is so named because scientists once thought it was a sloth!
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| Actual Sloth |
Sun bears do not hibernate. Also, sun bears have loose skin that allows them to twist when being attacked, so they can defend themselves.
Black bears are not necessarily black. Most are black but they can also be gray, brown, cream, and a sort of silvery-blue. If you got to rename the species "black bear", what would you call it instead?
What about bears in popular culture?
Bears are often portrayed in American popular culture as one of two things: friendly, soft, harmless teddy bears, or big, scary, violent animals.
Where have you seen bears portrayed?
Perhaps you saw the bear in the Disney movie The Fox and the Hound?
Maybe you are familiar with Smokey Bear who helps you to prevent forest fires?
Have you seen Disney's The Jungle Book? Baloo is a sloth bear.
Have you ever eaten Teddy Grahams or Gummi Bears?
Can you identify these popular culture bears below?
(Answers from top: Yogi Bear, Care Bears, Snuggles Bear, The Berenstain Bears)
You can find bears lots of places. Can you brainstorm some more?
What are some books I can read that are about bears?
Great question!
Here are some recommended nonfiction books about bears:
Here are some terrific story books about bears:
What about fun things to do with bears?
The Berenstain Bears Games
Teddy Bears Jigsaw Puzzle
The Gummy Bear Song (with Lyrics) - Beware: this song is addictive.
Are bears an endangered species?
There are only about a thousand Giant Pandas left in the wild because of habitat destruction.
Sloth bears are hunted in order to become dancing bears or their body parts are used for traditional medicinal purposes. They are also killed because they wonder into human populations due to habitat loss.
Sun bear cubs are often taken from their mothers and kept as pets. When they get too be too big to care for, they are either killed or released back into the wild. Since they live with people for the entire time in which they are cubs, they do not learn how to survive in the wild.
How can you help make sure that bears are protected in the wild?
Visit these sites for information on conservation and environmental protection for bears:
World Wildlife Federation (WWF)
Polar Bear Conversation @ Sea World
Conservation Northwest: Grizzly Bears
What did you learn about bears today? Which bear is your favorite? Which book would you like to read about bears? Share in the comments!
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