Play a little game. If you commence to searching for species and subspecies of bears, you'll find quite a few. Then ask your friends how many bears they can name. Worse would be to try to get people to identify them by pictures: brown, black with lighter fur, grizzly, the Kodiak (Alaskan grizzly or Kodiak brown), that can be a mite confusing. Even bears that are considered to be closely related can have wide varieties.
Photo credit: Polar bear by Steven C. Amstrup / USGS |
From the thick stomach lining of the panda and the partially webbed paws of the polar bear, to the insect-sucking muzzle of the sloth bear, bears provide a fascinating example of the variety of specialized characteristics existing within one family.To read the rest, click on "Bears across the world".
The bear family (Ursidae) consists of eight species, four of which are contained in the Ursus group: the brown bear, American black bear, Asiatic black bear and polar bear. Even within this group (known as a genus) the variation is wide.
The brown and American black bears are mainly vegetarians with appropriate dental features for crushing plant material. However, the first has claws suited to digging while the other has claws more suitable for climbing. The Asiatic black bear, which also has claws for climbing, is an opportunistic omnivorous feeder (eating meat and plants as available).
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