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Post by brobear on May 18, 2017 2:42:01 GMT -5
Food Habits Sloth bears are omnivorous, although their diet typically includes a large proportion of insect foods. Their diet includes leaves, honey, flowers, and fruits. During the months of March through June, fruits are more common and on occasion may make up 50% of these bears' diet. They prefer termite or bee nests and will do everything to get at them. While raiding termite nests these bears insert their long snouts into the nest, rip open the nest with their long claws, blow away the earth and dust, then feast on their prize by vacuuming the termites into their mouths. This sucking action is also accompanied with a series of puffings and belchings which can be heard up to 185 m away. The ability to voluntarily open and close the nostrils prevents the inhalation of dust during this process. Termites are a very secure food source, as they are present all year round. When nearby populated areas sloth bears feed on cultivated crops like sugar cane and maize (Ward and Kynaston, 1995; Sanderson, 1972). Primary Diet omnivore Animal Foods insects Plant Foods leaves fruit flowers - animaldiversity.org/accounts/Melursus_ursinus/ |
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Post by brobear on Oct 28, 2019 9:58:34 GMT -5
What does a sloth bear eat?
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Oct 28, 2019 17:34:42 GMT -5
The sloth bear eats mainly fruit and insects. They also eat dead animals and even usurp food from leopards etc.
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Post by brobear on Oct 28, 2019 18:09:07 GMT -5
What does a sloth bear eat?
Bears by Richard Perry:
Consider the sloth bear who lives in a favorable habitat of dense jungle. His headquarters is a clump of bamboo or some rocky retreat of tumbled boulders, preferably with a cave where the temperature remains constant, and in which he can shelter from heavy rains, intense heat and flies. From dawn until shortly before sunset he passes the hours buzzing and humming while sucking his paws. Why do bears, and especially sloth bears and sun bears, suck theit paws? - possibly because much of their food is sticky or juicy or fishy, or because there is a sticky secretion between their pads. Possibly it is a psychological habit. That marvelous observer of bears, William H. Wright, hunter and prospector in the mid-western Rockies for thirty years at the turn of the century ( 1900 ), noted that in contrast to the industrious grizzly, who is forever searching and digging laboriously for food and methodically burying it for future use, the playboy black bear - the Happy Hooligan - who never caches food, always appears to be hard put to know how to fill in his time.
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Post by brobear on Dec 4, 2019 5:15:29 GMT -5
What does a sloth bear eat? What is unique about the sloth bear? The sloth bear is an ant and termite eating (myrmecophagus) bear. It is the only bear species that seems to depend almost entirely on these social insects for its protein requirements and thus, in this respect, it is unique among bears. What else do they eat? While ants and termites form their year-round staple, they also feed a lot on fleshy fruits, which are available seasonally. In Panna, fruits contributed 56%, ants 29%, and termites 10% to the annual diet, in terms of ingested biomass. As with the seasonal variability, the diet also varies from place to place depending on the availability of various insects and fruits. |
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Post by brobear on Sept 16, 2021 5:54:05 GMT -5
Sloth bear chasing wild boar. I remember reading the story that goes with this picture. The bear is not after a pork dinner. He is after the acorns they were feeding on.  |
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Sept 16, 2021 6:16:59 GMT -5
/\ Only brown and black bears have fed on pork.
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Post by brobear on Sept 21, 2021 2:28:53 GMT -5
academic.oup.com/jmammal/article/78/2/584/909626 Seasonal and Habitat-Related Diets of Sloth Bears in Nepal Abstract Most bears are opportunistic omnivores; their diets consist of fruits, other vegetative material, and in lesser amounts, mammals, fishes, and insects. Sloth bears (Melursus ursinas) are the only species of ursid specifically adapted to feed on insects, especially termites and ants, although they also feed on fruits when available. We studied diets of sloth bears in Royal Chitwan National Park, Nepal, where fruits are available for ca. 4 months (May–August) and access to colonies of termites is reduced in lowlands that are flooded during the fruiting season. We analyzed feces and observed sloth bears foraging to investigate their responses to changes in availability of food. Diets of sloth bears were dominated by insects (>90%), especially termites (≥50%), from September through April, but they relied heavily on fruits from May through August. Seasonal movements between lowland and upland habitats seemed to be prompted mainly by availability of termites. Termites were more dominant in the diets of sloth bears in our study than in a study conducted 20 years ago in Royal Chitwan National Park and in studies in India. The dietary shift of sloth bears in Royal Chitwan National Park may have been related to changes in habitat conditions associated with relocation of people out of the Park. It appears that sloth bears, like other bears but unlike other myrmecophagous mammals, can adapt their diet to changing food conditions.
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