Fun Friday Facts Number I Don’t Even Know Anymore: BEARS

I am so not feeling this right now you guys, but I am writing this post because I love you, and in keeping with the current theme of animals, bears it is. Because bears are pretty awesome, and also this:

OMG DYING, SEND HELP

Those are newborn black bear cubs in the loving hands of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife employee, right before the mother bear ripped his head off, probably, or possibly right after, or maybe even during, I don’t know, the picture doesn’t really make it clear, all I know is that you’re not supposed to come between a mother bear and her cubs, buddy. Put those cubs down and back away.

Bears have their own website, yo. Bears.org is a “site designed to help you find information about bears.” And help me it did.

Did you know that the black bear, one of the more prolific bear species, also comes in brown, white, and blue? The blue or glacier bear is a subspecies of the American black bear that lives in the region between Glacier Bay and Yakutat Bay, in Southeast Alaska, in the temperate rainforest of the Tongass National Forest. Here’s a picture of two of them standing next to a regular black bear so you can see the contrast:

Cinnamon, light brown, chocolate brown and blond black bears may be mistaken for grizzly bears:

This one ran out of Charmin.

Grizzly bears are usually larger, with a “broader, more concave skull,” and a “shoulder hump.” Grizzly bears are also more aggressive than black bears. Both kinds of bears mostly don’t eat people, but sometimes they do kind of eat some people, a little bit, but knowing people they probably deserved it.

The Kermode or spirit bear is a white, or cream-colored, black bear native to British Columbia. It is not an albino, just a pale-colored bear. White bears are 30 percent more effective at catching fish than their darker counterparts, because their pale color makes them less visible to the fish.

It also manages to look far more thoughtful.

There are between 400 and 1,000 spirit bears in the wild, but naturally, their habitat is under threat.

Pinnipeds, which include seals, walruses and sea lions, are the bear’s closest living relatives.

There are only eight species of bears in the whole world. According to Bears.org, these are the American black bear, the brown bear, the polar bear, the sloth bear, the Asiatic black bear, the spectacled bear, the giant panda bear, and the sun bear.

Spectacled bears, the last surviving species of short-faced bear, are also the only bears native to South America.

You can really see the shortness of its face in this picture.
Image by Cburnett from Wikipedia.org

Like the giant panda, the spectacled bear eats a largely plant-based diet, especially fibrous plants, but also honey, sugarcane, berries and corn.

Polar bears, which feed mostly on seals, are the most carnivorous, and the most aggressive, species of bears. Unlike other bears, they do not hibernate in the winter, except for the pregnant females. The polar bear’s fur is not actually white, but is translucent, to allow light and warmth to travel to the bear’s skin. It has an underlayer of orange or yellow fur beneath this translucent fur.

This photographer has definitely been eaten.