The bear is a large and strong beast. It is believed that the hearing and vision of these animals are not the best. But, since bears belong to the canine order and, therefore, are related to dogs, they are distinguished by a developed sense of smell. It is a good sense of smell that helps them in finding food. Not without reason, scientists believe that bears have the best sense of smell among representatives of the mammal class.
When describing this animal, it is worth mentioning a large body, shortish stocky legs, an elongated muzzle, thick hair, usually dark in color (if we are not talking about a polar bear) and five non-retractable claws on the paws.
This animal can move pretty fast. Below in the article we will talk about what is the speed of a bear when running.
It is believed that a bear rarely shows aggressiveness, and if it does, it means that it either defends its territory or cubs, or is thoroughly hungry.
Origin
The first bears on the planet appeared at least five million years ago. The oldest fossils of these animals were found in France. Today scientists knowfour genera of this animal, of which the polar bear is considered the youngest in origin. Its total biological age is only two hundred thousand years.
The body length of a bear can reach 2 meters (white-breasted and black bears) and 3 meters (white and brown).
Maximum body weight - 750-800 kg. These dimensions, of course, are large, but they are not comparable with the dimensions of the giant short-faced bear that lived in Sulfur America in the Pleistocene era and became extinct long ago. He, standing on his hind legs, could be almost three times higher than an ordinary person, and the mass of the largest representatives reached one and a half tons!
Where it goes
The most widespread and one of the largest predators is the brown or common bear. Now its habitat, of course, is much smaller than in the old days. It is still found, in particular, in the Pyrenees, the Alps, in some places in the Scandinavian countries, in Asia - in Iran, Northern China, and Japan. Still quite numerous in Alaska and northern Canada. In Russia, the habitat roughly coincides with the forest zone, except for the southern regions and the tundra.
As habitats, bears (except polar bears, of course) prefer mountainous areas, dense forest thickets and windbreaks.
What eats
The bear, although considered a predator, is essentially omnivorous. Its diet consists of berries, roots and stems of herbs, nuts. Bears do an excellent job of catching fish in small rivers or in the shallow waters of large rivers. They destroy bird nests and bee hives,catch insects. In the spring, when there is still little vegetation, a bear can attack a roe deer or even an elk. This animal is very strong - with one stroke of its paw it is able to kill, for example, a deer ridge.
By autumn, a bear, having gained subcutaneous fat over the summer, arranges a lair in holes and under tree roots, warming it with branches and moss. The winter sleep of a bear (depending on the region of habitat and the age of an individual) can last from 75 to 200 days. During one wintering, the animal, as a rule, loses up to 80 kg of weight.
Movement Speed
It may seem that the bear is a large and clumsy animal. In fact, this beast is able to move quite briskly. What is the bear's running speed in km/h? The maximum is about 50. And this is when it comes to the running speed of a brown bear, a grizzly can "prancing" even faster - up to 56-60 kilometers per hour. Also, bears are excellent swimmers and climb trees with decent dexterity. True, the latter is more often done by young animals. In addition, the bear can endure long distance running for quite some time, albeit at a much slower pace.
Why, in this case, the main prey of a bear-hunter are insects and fish on the shallows, and not small ungulates or, for example, hares? Without a doubt, with such a bear's speed when running, he could feast on any of these animals more often - however, more often there are shots that show how this beast takes away a deer that they have killed from wolves, and does not hunt on its own.
Hunting
Probably speedbear when running is not a decisive factor. Mishka, a large and, whatever you say, rather bulky beast, still needs to be accelerated, and it is desirable that nothing interferes with the run. That is, the terrain should be flat and not particularly wooded. There are other videos in which a bear is chasing a flock of roe deer across the field (for reference: the speed that a roe deer, elk or hare develops most often fluctuates within the same limits as that of a bear: it is 50-60 kilometers per hour) and catches up with the last one running only in the final minutes of the footage. Without a doubt, it is not easy for an adult, well-fed predator to do this. But if the prey is within the bear's reach, it's all gone - as mentioned above, this predator is capable of knocking it to the ground with one blow.
In addition, creatures such as the hare are known to develop maximum speed as early as the fifth second of running. Long legs allow him to make the first jump of three to five meters, and upon landing, he bends his back like a spring, preparing for a new jump. Thus, to hunt while in ambush, even if the bear had more speed when running, he would hardly have been able to: for a predator that earns its own food in this way, the most important thing is dexterity and fast acceleration, both in forest thickets and in ravines, and in mountainous areas.
The hunting instinct in a bear, like most predators, is caused by a running (animal, human), so experienced hunters and travelers are advised not to run away from the beast they meet. After all, then he will definitely rush after you inchase, and a bear runs faster than a man.
Above, we talked, in particular, about what speed a bear develops when running.
