- Bears’ eyesight is on par with ours and they are one of the very few mammals that can actually see in color, but did you know that a bear's sense of smell is upwards of one hundred times greater than that of humans? A polar bear can track a smell from as far as twenty miles away and pick up a smell through as much as three feet of solid ice.
- Not all bears hibernate. The bears that live in colder climates such as the Brown Bear, The North American Black Bear and the Asiatic Black bear need to hibernate due to the shortage of food during the colder months. The Sloth Bear on the other hand lives in a very warm climate with abundant food and has no need to hibernate. Did you know that hibernating bears don't go to the bathroom? They recycle their waste into protein to feed the body during hibernation and while scientists have proven the process happens, they still don't understand how it works.
- Bear claws are different for each species of bear. The North American Black Bear has curved claws to help tear off tree bark and climb trees while the Brown Bear has straight claws good for digging in the ground. Did you know that Panda Bears have an additional thumb? Well, it looks like an extra thumb but it's actually an extra large wrist bone which serves to help them grasp onto bamboo better which is their primary source of food; they eat over 45 pounds of bamboo a day.
- Many people believe that all bears are carnivores (i.e they only eat meat ) but in fact only the Polar Bear is a true carnivore whereas all the other species of bear are omnivores and eat meat as well as vegetables. Did you know that the Sloth Bears favorite food is termites? Not only are termites their favorite food - it's their primary food source. The Sloth Bear doesn't have front teeth, which makes it easy for them to stick their snout into termite mounds and suck out the termites.
- Bears are very adept swimmers. While all bears can swim the Polar Bear is the best swimmer of them all. Did you know that a Polar Bear can swim up to 6 miles an hour? Not only can the Polar Bear swim up to 6 miles an hour but it can swim a distance of up to one hundred miles at this speed.
These 5 unbelievable bear facts are just a small sample of incredible facts about this amazing species. Here is one last thing you may not have known. Koala Bears aren't bears at all, they are a marsupial. Koala Bears are native to Australia - which is one of the very few places on the planet that there are no native bears at all.
