They are not the teddy bears you played with as a child.
Some may look cute and cuddly, but these big furry creatures really aren’t.
However, most of us usually 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 of seeing a bear may be in its homeland.
tontantravel / Flickr
The sun bear comes from the tropical forests of Southeast Asia.
In Malaysia, it is known as the Malayan honey bear because it likes 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 and light muzzles, with a white area extending above the eyes.
Chi King/Flickr
The giant panda is the model for cute and cute.
It is a roly-poly with a white face and body surrounded by black fur on the neck, legs and ears.
Unlike other bears, the panda is essentially a vegetarian, with bamboo making up 99 percent of its diet.
The panda is native to the mountains of southern China, specifically the Sichuan province.
These chubby bears measure up to six feet in circumference and weigh up to 250 pounds.
The sloth, which evolved from the brown bear during the Pleistocene, is native to the Indian subcontinent.
It is a nocturnal insectivorous bear with a lower lip designed to suck insects.
The sloth is lazier than the Asian black bear, with longer fur, a light-colored muzzle, a bulbous snout, and white claws.
They weigh up to 290 pounds and can be up to 6 feet tall.
They have been known to attack humans who invade their territory.
9. Asiatic black bear
Asian Black Bears don’t like humans very much, which is understandable since humans hunt them for 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 Asian black bear is also known as the moon bear or white-breasted bear because of the V or crescent-shaped white fur on their chest.
They are a medium-sized bear (averaging 6 feet tall and 300 pounds) that resemble prehistoric bears.
The spectacled bear got its name because the rings around its eyes make it look like glasses.
The spectacled bear is a medium-sized bear that is the only bear native to South America.
Although considered a carnivore, meat only makes up about 5 percent of the spectacled bear’s diet.
Its fur is usually black, but it can also be brown or reddish.
It is found in the cloud forests of the Andes Mountains, mainly in the northern and western parts 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 from Alaska to Florida and from California to the Maritime provinces of Canada.
They prefer wooded habitats and sometimes became attached to human communities due to the easy availability of food – they are scavengers of landfills.
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 is found in the mountainous regions of northern Europe, but as far south as the Pyrenees.
The largest population is found in the forests of Siberia.
The bear has long shaggy hair in different shades of brown.
The grizzly bear’s Latin name, Ursus horriblis, means “scary bear”. The grizzly is also known as the silver bear because of its gray-tipped 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 over 6 feet tall.
Grizzlies vary in color from pale to almost black, but are typically brown.
4. Ussuri brown bear
nAok0/Flickr
The Ussuri brown bear is one of the largest brown bears and is sometimes called the black grizzly bear.
Their population is dwindling in northeastern China, where they are hunted for body parts, but in North Korea they are considered national monuments.
They have been known to attack and even kill humans, while Siberian tigers occasionally turn them into dinner themselves.
3. Kamchatka bear
The Kamchatka brown bear, the largest bear in Eurasia, is found primarily in the Kamchatka region of Russia and surrounding islands, as well as Alaska’s Saint Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. It is one big bear, sometimes up to 9 feet tall and weighing nearly 1,500 pounds.
It is believed to be the ancestor of the Kodiak bear.
They rarely attack humans, but are trophy bears for Russian hunters.
2. Kodiak Bear
The Kodiak bear, the world’s largest brown bear, is native to Alaska’s Kodiak Islands.
Big doesn’t begin to describe their size: some weigh 1,500 pounds and stand nearly 10 feet tall, even though they eat the same food as other brown bears.
They are usually brown, but can be golden brown; young bears have a white ring around their neck for a few years.
The polar bear is, along with the Kodiak bear, the largest bear species in the world.
It is the same size as the Kodiak bear, but it is white instead of brown.
They are born on land but spend most of their lives on sea ice, with seals making up the majority of their diet.
They are considered a vulnerable species because climate change is melting their habitat.
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ANCHORAGE — In Alaska’s annual battle of the heavyweights, a salmon-eating bruin named 747 — like a jetliner — has come out on top.
The bear, one of more than 2,200 brown bears roaming Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, won the week Tuesday after a heated online vote that has become an international sensation: Fat Bear Week.
“This year he really put on a pound, it looked like he was fat enough to go into hibernation in July, yet he continued to eat until his stomach felt like it was dragging along the ground in late September,” the park said.
Fat Bear Week pits 12 bears against each other in playoff-style brackets.
Bears fans compared photos and voted online for their favorite from last Wednesday on Tuesday night.
For people, Fat Bear Week is a fun way to learn about nature and Alaska from a distance.
Katmai bears can grow to a weight of well over 453 kg from the summer feast.
This makes Fat Bear Week “survival of the fattest,” as the Park Service puts it.
Katmai, a 4 million hectare park spanning mountains, lakes, streams and coastline, is famous for the world’s densest population of brown bears, the coastal version of grizzly bears.
In Katmai, the Brooks river is a great feeding place for brown bears.
There, bears gather in summer and autumn to catch salmon that swim upstream to the spawning grounds. Most of the action is captured by a web cam operated by explore.org, one of the Fat Bear Week partners.
This year, the river was more than usual a paradise for bears thanks to the record salmon run, said Katmai media officer Naomi Doak.
“The combination of a big salmon run and fewer people has really given the river to the bears,” he said.