Bear

''For other meanings, see Bear (disambiguation).'' ''Ailuropoda''
''Ursus (biology)''
''Tremarctos''
''Arctodus'' (extinct) A bear is a large mammal of the order Carnivora, family Ursidae. The adjective, ''ursine'', is used to describe things of bearlike nature. ==Physical attributes== Common characteristics of bears include a short tail, excellent senses of smell and hearing, five un-retractable claws, and long, dense, shaggy fur. Bears have a large body with powerful limbs. They are capable of standing up on their hind legs. They have broad paws, long snouts, and round ears. Their teeth are used for defense and tools and depend on the diet of the bear. Their claws are used for ripping, digging, and catching. ==Habitats== Bears live in a variety of habitats from the tropics to the Arctic and from forests to snowfields. They are mainly omnivore, although some have a more specialised diet, such as polar bears. They eat lichens, roots, nuts, and berries. They can also go to a river or other body of water to capture fish. Bears will commonly travel far for food. Hunting times are usually in the dusk or the dawn except when humans are nearby. Some of the large species, such as the polar bear and the grizzly bear, are dangerous to humans, especially in areas where they have become used to people. For the most part, bears are shy and are easily frightened of humans. They will, however, defend their cubs ferociously. ==Reproductive behaviour== The bear's courtship period is very brief. Bears reproduce seasonally, usually after hibernation. Cubs come out toothless, blind, and bald. The cubs, usually born in litters of 1–3, will stay with the mother for six months. They will be fed by milk at first and will start hunting with the mother in three months. Then, they are weaned. However, they will still remain nearby for three years. The cubs are more sexually mature at seven years. Normally, bears are very solitary and will not remain close together for long periods of time. ==Other== Many bears of northern regions are assumed to Hibernation in the winter. They actually don't hibernate. Their body temperature sinks a moderate amount and they can be easily awakened. Laws have been passed in many areas of the world to protect bears from hunters or habitat destruction. Bears in captivity used to be trained to dance, box, or unicycle, but it is now controversial to use animals in this way. Bears have an average life expectancy of 25–40 years. Polar bears are the largest type of bear, indeed one of the largest carnivores on terra firma. Sun bears are the smallest, only a bit smaller than the average woman. ==Classification== * Family Ursidae ** Subfamily Ailuropodinae *** Giant Panda, ''Ailuropoda melanoleuca'' ** Subfamily Tremarctinae *** Andean Bear, ''Tremarctos ornatus'' *** Florida Cave Bear, ''Tremarctos floridanus'' (extinct) *** Arctodus, ''Arctodus simus'' (extinct) *** Arctodus, ''Arctodus pristinus'' (extinct) **Subfamily Ursinae *** Brown Bear, ''Ursus arctos'' *** American Black Bear, ''Ursus americanus'' *** Polar bear, ''Ursus maritimus'' *** Asiatic Black Bear, ''Ursus thibetanus'' *** Auvergne Bear, ''Ursus minimus'' (extinct) *** Etruscan Bear, ''Ursus etruscus'' (extinct) *** Cave bear, ''Ursus spelaeus'' (extinct) *** Atlas Bear, ''Ursus crowtheri'' (extinct) *** Sloth Bear, ''Melursus ursinus'' *** Sun Bear, ''Helarctos malayanus'' The genera ''Melursus'' and ''Helarctos'' are sometimes included in the genus ''Ursus''. The Asiatic black bear and the polar bear used to be placed in their own genera, ''Selenarctos'' and ''Thalarctos''. ==Evolutionary relationships== Bears are members of the Order Carnivora, Sub-Order Caniformia, and Family Ursidae. Other members of the Caniformia include wolves and other dog-like mammals (Family Canidae), weasels, skunks, and badgers (Family Mustelidae), raccoons (Family Procyonidae), and walruses (Family Odobenidae), seals (Family Phocidae), and sea lions (Family Otariidae). Although bears are often described as having evolved from a dog-like ancestor, their closest living relatives are the pinnipeds (walruses, seals, and sea lions). The origins of the bears can be traced back to the raccoon-sized, dog-like ''Cephalogale'' from the middle Oligocene and early Miocene (approximately 20-30 million years ago) of Europe. ''Cephalogale'' gave rise to a lineage of early bears, the genus ''Ursavus''. This genus radiated in Asia and ultimately gave rise to the first true bears (genus ''Ursus'') in Europe, 5 million years ago. Extinct bear genera includes ''Arctodus'', ''Agriarctos'', ''Agriotherium'', ''Plionarctos'' and ''Indarctos''. Although there has previously been much discussion as to whether the Giant Panda belongs to the bear family or the raccoon family, recent DNA analyses have shown that the Giant Panda is a member of the Family Ursidae and as such is more closely related to other bears. The status of the Red Panda remains uncertain, but many experts, including Don E. Wilson and DeeAnn M. Reeder, classify it as a member of the bear family. Others place it with the racoons in Procyonidae or in its own family, the Ailuridae. The many similarities between the two pandas are thought to represent convergent evolution for feeding primarily on bamboo. ==Bears in mythology== [[Image:Coabxvi.png|thumb|The saddled "bear of St Corbinian" the emblem of Freising, here incorporated in the arms of Pope Benedict XVI]] There is some evidence for prehistoric bear worship, see Arctic, Arcturus, Great Bear, Berserker, Kalevala. The bear is a national emblem of Russia. Numerous cities around the world have adopted the bear as a symbol, notably the Switzerland capital Bern, which takes its name from the German language for bear, ''b�r''. The bear is also the name-emblem of Berlin. Bears are a common symbol of heraldry. In the arms of the bishopric of Freising (''illustration, right'') the bear is the dangerous totem animal tamed by Saint Corbinian and made to carry his civilized baggage over the mountains: the allegory of the civilizing influence of Christianity is inescapable. In addition, the Proto-Indo-European language word for bear, ''*hr̥ktos'' (ancestral to the Greek ''arktos'', Latin ''ursus'', Welsh ''arth'' (c.f. Arthur), Sanskrit ''ṛkṣa'', Hittite ''hartagga'') seems to have been subject to taboo deformation or replacement (as was the word for wolf, ''wlk^wos''), resulting in the use of numerous unrelated words with meanings like "brown one" (English ''bruin'') and "honey-eater" (Slavic "medved"). Thus four separate Indo-European language groups do not share the same PIE root. The theory of the bear taboo is taught to almost all beginning students of Indo-European and historical linguistics: the putative original PIE word for bear is itself descriptive, because a cognate word in Sanskrit is "rakshas", meaning "harm, injury" [http://www.cloudline.org/LinguisticArchaeology.html]. ===External links=== *[http://www.cloudline.org/LinguisticArchaeology.html Chuck Bigelow, note on PIE roots signifying "bear"] *[http://www.iberianature.com/material/spainbearnews.htm Spanish bear news] regularly-updated news archive on Bears in Spain ==Bears in popular culture== Bears, usually anthropomorphized, appear frequently as characters in popular culture; see List of fictional bears. Some List of historical bears have been famous in their own right, like the bear that the President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot in Mississippi. That bear became the prototype for the Teddy bear, which is a stuffed animal toy; In the stock market, a ''bear market'' is a period of declining prices. Pessimistic forecasting or negative activity is said to be ''bearish'', and one who expresses bearish sentiment is a ''bear''. Its opposite is a ''bull market'', and ''bullish'' sentiment from ''bulls''. In gay culture a bear (gay) refers generally to large hairy men. Many cultures regard bears as possessing healing powers. The peoples of China, Japan and Korea use bears' body parts and secretions (notably their gall bladders and bile) as part of traditional Chinese medicine. This has had a major impact on populations of bears around the world, although it has been alleviated to some extent by Chinese efforts to farm bears. The bear, the bruin, or specific types of bears are popular nicknames or mascots, e.g. for sports teams. The constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor represent bears. In CB slang, "bear" (or "smokey," in reference to Smokey Bear) is a nickname for law enforcement. Microsoft Bear is an unofficial mascot hidden in Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. ==Further reading== *Bears of the World, Terry Domico, Photographs by Terry Domico and Mark Newman, Facts on File, Inc, 1988, hardcover, ISBN 0816015368 *''The Bear'' by William Faulkner ==See also== *Animal *List of mammals *Mammal *Mammal classification Bears lv:Lācis scn:Ursidae zh-min-nan:H�m

Bear

== Attriution == I removed the following from the end of the first paragraph of the article: * [This entry has been prepared by a fifth grade class in Reno, Nevada] Excellent, but that information belongs on the talk page, not in the article. A good first paragraph in my opinion. The first paragraph of any article, if possible, ought to be understandable by advanced elementary school or middle school students. User:Fred Bauder 19:19 Jan 29, 2003 (UTC) == Entertaining bears == i think ''entertaining bears'' are not polit. correct. There are organisations which try to give such bears a chance to live as they should. please mention that and don't write in one of the first sentence about the abuse of bears -- a german wikipedian == Caps == Guys, we had a big discussion on the mailing list regarding capitalization of names of animals. Don't remember how it came out (maybe capitalization of all words in name), but please look up whatever is the right way and follow it. User:Fred Bauder 10:32 2 Jun 2003 (UTC) :I missed that discussion, but convention holds that animal names should not be capitalized unless they contain a proper name within them (e.g. gazelle, Canada goose). Names like "black bear," "polar bear," etc. should not be capitalized. -- User:Funnyhat 19:09, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC) == Picture == Are we sure that the picture is a brown bear and not a brown colored black bear? User:Rmhermen 18:56, Sep 8, 2003 (UTC) :I see that the picture page describes it as black bears so I changed it. User:Rmhermen 18:59, Sep 8, 2003 (UTC) == More detailed classification == A more detailed classification of the Bear family can be found on the "Nederlands" page. It includes subspecies. User:GerardM 07:19, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC) == Red Panda == Currently, the Red Panda is listed as being a member both of Ursidae and Procyonidae on the respective family pages. It is listed as Ursidae on its own page. Should it thus be deleted from Procyonidae? User:John Kenney 03:50, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC) : I'm trying to make the red panda pages agree. Don't change here with out changing at least mammal Procyonidae and Red panda. == Apparent copyvio == The section of types of bear looks like a copyright violation from [http://www.bearbiology.com/abdesc.html] and related pages. I have removed it. In general it would be better to describe types of bears on their species pages, not here. User:Zeimusu — User:Zeimusu | User talk:Zeimusu 03:26, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC) == Photo title? == Why does it read "Chrisoph Stelzer" above the bear photo?

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