Sloth bear facts for kids

Sloth Bear; Temporal range: Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene – Recent
	Sloth Bear
Conservation status
	; Vulnerable (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Ursidae
Genus:	Melursus
Species:	M. ursinus
Binomial name
	Melursus ursinus; (Shaw, 1791)

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.

Wikispecies has information on: Sloth Bear.

Images for kids

Nodder's illustration (1789)
Skulls of a Sri Lankan sloth bear (left) and a common sloth bear (right) from the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
Sloth bear skull: Note the lack of two upper incisors.
A Sri Lankan sloth bear on a tree
A mother with a cub on her back at the Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary, India
Seven-day-old sloth bear cubs, rescued from a building site where they had been born.
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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A fragile co-existence between sloth bears and humans at Ratanmahal Sloth Bear Sactuary, Dahod, Gujarat, India
Illustration of British officers hunting a sloth bear on horseback
A tame bear and its handler in Pushkar