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:
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| 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:
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| This photographer has definitely been eaten. |
