On May 10, 2020, we celebrate International Bear Day!
For the second year in a row, the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria is celebrating International Bear Day and holding a “Happy Bear Day” program.
The purpose of this thematic day is to acquaint children and adults with the diversity of bears in the world. This year we celebrate this day online and offer to join our events to our visitors, young biologists, teachers and just nature lovers…
Bears (Ursidae) are a family of carnivorous mammals (Carnivora), which includes 8 modern species distributed throughout the northern and partially southern hemispheres of the Earth.
Compared to other families in the order, bears have the least variety of appearance, size and features of the internal structure of the organism. This family includes the largest of the modern representatives of the Predator order, and at the same time the largest terrestrial predators: the polar bear weighs more than a ton at a length of about three meters; the smallest species of the family, the sun bear, weighs up to 70 kilograms at a body length of 1 to 1.5 meters. Females of all species are smaller than males; in polar bears, the difference in weight and size of males and females reaches 1.5-2 times.
Historically, bears have lived on all continents except Australia and Antarctica; but now they have been destroyed in Africa, where they formerly lived in the Atlas Mountains. Earlier, bears were quite common in Europe, including Iceland; Asia, except the Arabian Peninsula, the island of Sulawesi and the Philippine Islands; in North America they reached south to the central regions of Mexico; the spectacled bear, both before and now, lives in an area detached from the main area of the family in the Andes.
In historical times, the range of the family has greatly decreased under the influence of man (direct destruction or disturbance of the natural environment): bears have disappeared in large parts of Europe, North America, completely - in Africa.
Within Ukraine, the family is represented by one species - the brown bear.