Bears are found on the continents of North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.
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19 Facts About Bears
2.
Bears have been hunted since prehistoric times for their meat and fur; they have been used for bear-baiting and other forms of entertainment, such as being made to dance.
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3.
Bears suggests instead that "bear" is from the Proto-Indo-European word *g?wer- ~ *g?wer "wild animal".
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4.
Bears' closest living relatives are the pinnipeds, canids, and musteloids.
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5.
Bears are generally bulky and robust animals with short tails.
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6.
Bears can stand on their hind feet and sit up straight with remarkable balance.
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7.
Bears however have a single type of melanin and the hairs have a single color throughout their length, apart from the tip which is sometimes a different shade.
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8.
Bears have small rounded ears so as to minimize heat loss, but neither their hearing or sight are particularly acute.
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9.
Bears have a fairly simple digestive system typical for carnivorans, with a single stomach, short undifferentiated intestines and no cecum.
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10.
Bears must spend much of their time feeding in order to gain enough nutrition from foliage.
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11.
Bears are overwhelmingly solitary and are considered to be the most asocial of all the Carnivora.
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12.
Bears are prolific scavengers and kleptoparasites, stealing food caches from rodents, and carcasses from other predators.
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13.
Bears normally do not wake during their hibernation, and can go the entire period without eating, drinking, urinating, or defecating.
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14.
Bears are parasitized by eighty species of parasites, including single-celled protozoans and gastro-intestinal worms, and nematodes and flukes in their heart, liver, lungs and bloodstream.
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15.
Bears have been popular subjects in art, literature, folklore and mythology.
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16.
Bears have thus been thought to predict the future and shaman were believed to have been capable of transforming into bears.
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17.
Bears are popular in children's stories, including Winnie the Pooh, Paddington Bear, Gentle Ben and "The Brown Bear of Norway".
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18.
An early version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", was published as "The Three Bears" in 1837 by Robert Southey, many times retold, and illustrated in 1918 by Arthur Rackham.
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19.
The Care Bears began as greeting cards in 1982, and were featured as toys, on clothing and in film.
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