They are not the teddy bears you played with as a child.
Most of us will mostly only see them in zoos, and these largest bear species in the world are definitely worth a visit.
You probably won’t find all bears in all zoos; your best chance to see some bears may be in their native country.
tontantravel / Flickr
The sun bear is native to the tropical forests of Southeast Asia.
In Malaysia, it is known as the Malay bear because of its fondness for the sweet sticky substance.
The sun bear is the smallest bear, weighing about 176 pounds and standing about five feet tall.
They have short black fur with light muzzles, with a white area above the eyes.
Chi King / Flickr
The giant panda is a model for the sweet and cuddly.
Roly-poly has a white face and body surrounded by black fur around the neck, legs and ears.
Unlike other bears, the panda is basically a vegetarian, and bamboo makes up 99 percent of its diet.
The panda is native to the mountains of south-central China, especially the Sichuan province.
These chubby bears measure up to six feet across and weigh up to 250 pounds.
The sloth bear, which evolved from the brown bear in the Pleistocene period, is native to the Indian subcontinent.
It is a nocturnal, insect-eating bear with a lower lip designed to suck up bugs.
The sloth is thinner than the Asiatic black bear, with longer fur, pale bulbous muzzles and white claws.
They weigh up to 290 pounds and can be up to 6 feet tall.
They are known to attack humans who invade their territory.
9. Asiatic black bear
Asian black bears don’t like humans much, understandably so, as humans hunt them for their body parts and traditional medicine.
They are found in the mountainous regions of Asia, from Taiwan and northeastern China to the northern Indian subcontinent and the Russian Far East.
The Asiatic black bear is also known as the moon bear or white bear because of the white V-shaped or crescent-shaped fur on their chest.
They are a medium-sized bear (averaging 6 feet tall and 300 pounds) that resembles prehistoric bears.
8. Bear with glasses
The Spectacled Bear got its name because the rings around its eyes look like it is wearing glasses.
A medium-sized bear, the spectacled bear is the only bear native to South America.
Although it is considered a carnivore, meat only makes up about 5 percent of the spectacled fish’s diet.
Its fur is mostly black, but it can also be brown or reddish in color.
It can be found in the cloud forests of the Andes, mainly in the northern and western regions of South America.
7. American black bear
The American black bear is the smallest bear species on the North American continent, but it is most commonly found anywhere from Alaska to Florida and from California to Canada’s Maritime Provinces.
They prefer forest habitats and sometimes attach themselves to human communities due to the easy availability of food – they are scavengers.
The American black bear evolved from the sun bear thousands of years ago.
6. Eurasian brown bear
The Eurasian brown bear is also known as the European brown bear where it can be found in the mountainous regions of northern Europe, but even as far south as the Pyrenees.
The largest population can be found in Siberian forests.
The bear has long shaggy fur in various shades of brown.
The grizzly’s Latin name, Ursus horriblis, means “terrifying bear”. The grizzly bear is also known as the silver bear because of its gray fur, and sometimes as the North American brown bear, because it is the same species.
Whatever you call it, it’s ferocious and huge—males weigh nearly 800 pounds and stand more than 6 feet tall.
Grizzly bears vary in color from blue to almost black, but are usually brown.
4. Ussuri brown bear
nAok0 / Flickr
The Ussuri brown bear is one of the largest brown bears and is sometimes known as the black grizzly bear.
Their population is declining in northeastern China where they are hunted for their body parts, but they are considered national monuments in North Korea.
They have been known to attack and even kill humans, with Siberian tigers occasionally turning them into dinner.
3. Kamchatka brown bear
The Kamchatka brown bear, the largest bear in Eurasia, is mainly found in the Kamchatka region of Russia and surrounding islands, as well as on Alaska’s St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. It is one big bear, sometimes up to 9 feet tall and weighing nearly 1,500 pounds.
The ancestor of the bear is believed to be the Kodiak.
They rarely attack humans, but they are a trophy bear for Russian hunters.
2. Kodiak bear
The Kodiak bear, the largest brown bear in the world, is originally from Kodiak Island in Alaska.
Big doesn’t begin to describe its size: some weigh 1,500 pounds and stand nearly 10 feet tall when standing upright, even though they eat the same food as other brown bears.
They are usually brown, but can also be golden; young bears have a white ring around their neck for several years.
1. Polar bear
The polar bear, along with the Kodiak bear, is the largest bear species in the world.
It is the same size as the kodiak bear, except that it is white instead of brown.
They are considered a vulnerable species because climate change is melting their habitat.