Sloth bear facts for kids
| Sloth Bear Temporal range: Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene – Recent |
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|---|---|
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| Sloth Bear | |
| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Family: | Ursidae |
| Genus: | Melursus |
| Species: | M. ursinus |
| Binomial name | |
| Melursus ursinus (Shaw, 1791) |
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The Sloth Bear (Melursus ursinus) is a bear that lives in India and Sri Lanka.
Appearance
Sloth Bears have long and shaggy black fur, but its fur can also be brown. On its chest it has a white or yellow mark, which is shaped like an Y or V. They have big feet with long claws. The long claws are also the reason for its English name, because the claws look like the claws of a Sloth.
Life
Sloth Bears eat insects, like for example termites. But they also eat fruit, honey, eggs, and also meat.
Female Sloth Bears usually have 1-2 babies, sometimes 3. Young Sloth Bears stay with their mother for 2-3 years. In captivity they can live to be 40 years old.
Sloth bear adults can weigh anywhere from 120-130 pounds and measure anywhere form 60-70 inches in length.
Images for kids
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Nodder's illustration (1789)
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Skulls of a Sri Lankan sloth bear (left) and a common sloth bear (right) from the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
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Sloth bear skull: Note the lack of two upper incisors.
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A Sri Lankan sloth bear on a tree
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A mother with a cub on her back at the Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary, India
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Seven-day-old sloth bear cubs, rescued from a building site where they had been born.
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A Female Sloth bear with her and a Male Indian Leopard residing together captured at Ratanmahal Sloth Bear Sanctuary, Dahod, Gujarat, India
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Sloth bear
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A fragile co-existence between sloth bears and humans at Ratanmahal Sloth Bear Sactuary, Dahod, Gujarat, India
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Illustration of British officers hunting a sloth bear on horseback
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A tame bear and its handler in Pushkar
