Bears are More than Meets the Eye!
Chances are that you probably have at least one teddy bear. Maybe you like to watch cartoon bears like Winnie the Pooh or Kung Fu Panda!
But how much do you really know about bears?
There’s more to bears than meets the eye.
Here are some of our favorite bear facts for kids.
Quick Bear Facts
- The weight of bears changes often throughout the year.
- Bears’ fur is made up of two coats of hair.
- Bears have excellent memory skills.
- To communicate with one another, bears leave marks on trees with their claws and teeth.
- Koala bears sustain themselves by using their butts up there on the towering branches.
- Bears don’t eat, drink, or defecate while they are hibernating. They reuse the protein from their urine.
Bears live all over the world
There are 8 species of bears in the world.
Some bears live in a lot of different places. Brown bears and black bears live in North America Europe.
Other bears are only found in certain places. You can only find Giant Pandas in Asia.
Polar bears only live where it’s very cold, like Alaska and northern Canada. Also, polar bears only live north of the equator. That means there are no polar bears in Antarctica!
There’s more to bear fur than meets the eye
This is one of our favorite bear facts for kids – did you know that bears have two layers of fur?
The first layer is short, and is meant to keep bears warm. The second layer is longer, and helps bears stay dry by keeping water off of them. This is important, because bears like to swim.
Also, did you know that most bears are born without fur?
Polar bears and giant pandas are born with a thin layer of fur, but all other bears are born hairless!
Bears have big appetites
Maybe you’ve seen pictures of bears catching fish. But there’s more to the bear diet than meets the eye.
Did you know that polar bears are the only carnivores in the bear family? Most other bears eat a mix of plants and animals.
Grizzly bears eat close to 20,000 calories a day. That’s 10 times what the average human eats.
Pandas don’t eat meat at all–they just eat bamboo!
Your dog might be related to bears
There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to bear ancestry. Scientists believe that bears share a common ancestor with wolves and coyotes.
This means that bear and beagles could be long-lost cousins!
Both dogs and bears have an excellent sense of smell. Unlike dogs, though, bears actually are able to see color.
Some bears aren’t bears at all
Did you know that there are no native bears to Australia?
You may be thinking, “But what about Koala bears?”
Even though we call them bears, Koalas aren’t bears at all. They’re marsupials, and related to kangaroos.
Scientists used to think that pandas weren’t bears either, but instead distant relatives of raccoons. Recently, however, DNA has shown that pandas are bears after all!
Bear Facts for Kids #6: The “Teddy” Bear is named after a president!
Teddy bears might just seem like cute stuffed animals, but there’s more to them than meets the eye.
Theodore Roosevelt was a United States president who was famous for hunting. On one hunting trip, however, he refused to shoot a black bear cub. Good on you, Teddy!
After this, toy makers started selling stuffed bears called “Teddy’s” Bears. The nickname stuck, and we still have Teddy Bears today!
Bears are really cool creatures. This list only scratches the surface when it comes to bear facts. They truly are more than meets the eye!
What are your favorite facts about bears, or other animals?