There are eight species in the family Ursidae (which is a basically fancier name for bears), and the sun bear is perhaps the one we know the least about. Given their isolated habitat away from humans as well as their solitary and reclusive nature, they’ve been relatively difficult to study. So what do we know about them? Fortunately, enough to gather a bunch of interesting facts about them.

Evolution and Classification of the Sun Bear

1. It was discovered on the island of Sumatra in western Indonesia by a guy named Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles in 1821, and gave it the scientific name of Ursus malayanus. Incidentally, Raffles is perhaps best known for being the founder of Singapore.

2. American naturalist Thomas Horsfield thought the sun bear was unique enough to belong in a genus of its own in 1825, and called it Helarctos, which is basically Greek for “sun bear.”

3. There are two subspecies of sun bears: Malayan and Bornean. The Bornean sun bear is only found in Borneo, and has a smaller skull than the Malayan sun bear.

4. Sometimes it’s known as a honey bear because of its preference for the honey they find in honeycombs. It should not be confused with the kinkajou found in Central and South America, which is also sometimes called a honey bear and is much much much different than the sun bear.

5. The Malayan sun bear is also known as a bruang.

6. They are also sometimes called basindo nan tenggil, which is “He who likes to sit high” in the Malay language.

7. Of the eight species of bears within the Ursidae family, it is not clear which other bear is its closest relative, though they are related more closely to polar bears than giant pandas, despite a much closer proximity to pandas. Brown bears and polar bears diverged from black bears and sun bears around 5.5 to 6.7 million years ago, and the sun bears diverged from the black bears around 5 to 6.2 million years ago.

Appearance and Anatomy: What Do Sun Bears Look Like?

8. Of all the species of Ursidae, the sun bear is the smallest, and it’s not particularly close. Adults weigh between 50 and 140 pounds, which is pretty light compared to polar bears that can weigh almost a thousand pounds. They can grow up to 55 inches long, and shoulder-to-shoulder, they’re about 28 inches wide, about half the size of an American black bear.

9. It gets its name from the U-shaped orange patch on its chest, though the color can also be a kind of yellow ochre shade. It can also be closer to white or cream, and there are a small number of sun bears that don’t even have a patch at all.

10. That U-shape isn’t necessarily consistent across all sun bears, though. The shape of the spot on the chest can be circular, v-shaped, crescent, or an irregular patch.

11. Sun bears have very short fur on their body — the shortest of all bear species, in fact. The color of their fur can range from dark brown to black to grey.

12. Legend has it that sun bears get their golden patch from being kissed by the rising sun, which is how they get their name.

13. The golden patch is a kind of survival tactic. When they sense danger from an enemy, they can stand on their hind legs, display their big, brightly-colored patch, and appear more threatening.

14. You could also say that the golden patch is like a fingerprint for sun bears. No two individual bears have the exact same pattern.

15. They have very silky and glossy fur that is short enough to prevent overheating in the tropical South Asia, but thick enough to protect them from branches and rain.

16. They have a very short muzzle (or snout) and small ears to go with their stocky build.

17. Because of their build, they’re also known as dog bears by local humans due to its silky short fur and relatively small size. Of course, they should not be confused with the extinct bear dog, which disappeared around 8 million years ago.

18. Perhaps the most interesting and notable feature of this bear is their long tongue, which can be up to 10 inches long. Their extra-long tongue helps them extract honey and grubs from nests.

19. Sun bears have big claws located on their front paws that are curved and long — like a sickle — which are used to climb on trees. These claws also help them crack logs so they can feast on termites.

20. They also have big-ass teeth that they use to break into trees. Their large canines and strong jaws have a particularly high bite force, which is another way of saying that their teeth can do a lot of damage relative to their body size. Compared to other carnivores, their bite force quotient is higher than lions, cheetahs, tigers, and jaguars.

Check out their jaws and claws at work as one tears apart a coconut!

Habitat and Lifestyle: Where Does the Sun Bear Live?

21. The sun bear can be naturally found in tropical forests throughout Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Malaysia, as well as India and China.

22. Their (re)discovery in China is a pretty recent one. It wasn’t until 2017 that sightings were confirmed in Yingjiang County, western Yunnan Province, near the border of Myanmar. You can find them in the Sumatran and Bornean islands as well.

23. Unfortunately, they are now extinct in Singapore, disappearing sometime during the 19th and early 20th century. They’ve also been eradicated in significant portions of Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and Vietnam.

24. Sun bears usually prefer to live in the dense rainforests due to the high availability of food and shelter.

25. Unfortunately, they have lost a lot of their natural habitats thanks to human development and deforestation. They actually tend to avoid forests that have been heavily logged and prefer staying away from human settlements, though they have been sighted around farmland and orchards and preying on livestock.

26. Like koalas, and many different kinds of monkeys, sun bears are arboreal, which means they spend a great deal of their time in trees. They are actually the most arboreal of all the bear species.

27. They can climb tall trees quickly due to their strong teeth and long claws gripping the trunk. They can be found sunbathing and hanging out in trees at least 20 feet above the ground.

28. They even sleep in canopy nests and platforms constructed from folding branches of a tree and using leaves.

29. Bears are practically famous for their hibernation habits, but the sun bear actually does not undergo the process of hibernation. This is likely due to the year-round availability of food in their natural habitats, unlike other bears.

30. Sun bears can be active during the day as they hunt for food, but despite its name, they are generally nocturnal, perhaps to avoid running into destructive humans.

31. They are not generally found in groups and are usually live a pretty solitary life. If they are around other sun bears, it’s often either mating or a mother taking care of her young.

Reproduction and Mating Habits of the Sun Bear

32. Sun bears breed throughout the year. They are polyestrous, which means they can be born throughout the year and they aren’t limited to a single annual breeding season.

33. A female sun bear’s gestation period lasts for three to nine months.

34. Typically, the mother gives usually gives birth to just one or two cubs.

35. Female sun bears can start reproducing when they are three years old, but males can start when they’re just a year old.

36. When sun bears are born, the birth tends to occur inside hollow tree cavities. The mother makes a large nest near the roots of the tree, and nourishes and keeps the cubs there until they’re able to walk and climb. Mothers are fiercely loyal toward their cubs, nursing them for two or three years until they are fully grown.

37. Mother bears have also been known walk on their hind legs while cradling their cub in their arms. This is something other bears don’t typically do.

38. Pregnancies can vary wildly: they can take anywhere from three months to eight months.

39. Mother sun bears can give birth once a year, but in one very rare case at the Berlin Zoo in 1961, a female actually gave birth twice in a single year.

40. The average life span of a sun bear in the wild is about 25 years. In captivity they can live up to 30 years.

41. Sun bear cubs are born blind and deaf. Their eyes won’t open until they’re about 25 days old and they stay blind for another 25 days after that. While they gain their sight, their hearing improves, and they get the full strength of both senses when they’re around 50 days old.

Want to see what a baby sun bear looks like? Here’s a video of a rescue being rehabilitated.

Diet and Food: What Does a Sun Bear Eat?

42. Sun bears are carnivores and feed on small animals like birds, lizards, rodents, and even deer — but they can also be pretty vegetarian. They feed on fruits, vegetables, small plants, tree branches, nuts, shoots, honey, grubs, insects, and eggs.

43. That long-ass tongue sun bears are known for? It’s great for extracting termites and other insects from logs, which they use their sharp claws to crack open.

44. Sometimes when a sun bear has difficulty breaking into a tree trunk, they just stick a paw in, wait for termites to crawl all over, and then lick them off.

45. Like other species of bears, their molar teeth are not capable of shearing flesh, but it can definitely grind vegetables and bushes.

46. The eating habits of sun bears are instrumental to preserving their habitat, and they do their part to save the rainforests. The termites they eat means less termites are eating trees, which encourages more tree growth. Their fruit-heavy diet means they poop out a lot of seeds that are spread all over the forest — encouraging more plants to grow.

47. Although sun bears are pretty solitary and don’t hang out with one another, they can be seen eating within close proximity to others.

Predators & Conservation: How Are Sun Bears Threatened?

48. Tigers are the main natural predators of sun bears, with leopards and dholes also preying on them occasionally but far less common. Crazily enough, a reticulated python in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo once actually swallowed a sun bear.

49. Sun bears have adapted to fend themselves from attacks from predators. They have loose and massy skin around their neck that helps them bite their attackers if sun bears get caught by the neck.

50. The bears have also adapted to avoid predators altogether. It’s why they’re able to climb trees and build nests there.

51. Cubs are obviously more vulnerable than adult sun bears because of their size, particularly from large birds and snakes that can easily approach the nests.

52. Unfortunately and obviously, humans are the biggest threat to sun bears. Deforestation and land-clearing has been so prevalent that sun bears have learned not to stick around heavily-logged areas.

53. Hunting bears is illegal in Southern Asia, but poaching remains a big threat to the sun bear regardless. Frankly, the risks and punishment of getting caught do not outweigh the lucrative gains poachers can get from them.

54. Sun bears are valued for the bile from their gall bladder, which are sometimes sold in traditional Chinese medicine shops.

55. Paws are considered a delicacy, and in Kalimantan — which is the Indonesian part of Borneo — locals have been known to eat the meat.

56. Some farmers hunt sun bears and consider them pests because they have been known to graze for bananas, coconuts, and livestock. Obviously, this only adds to their decimation.

57. Perhaps because of their relatively chill nature, it is assumed that sun bears can be domesticated, so cubs are taken from their mothers and sold as exotic pets. However, despite their relatively chill nature, they can grow up to be quite aggressive. It is not cool to have a sun bear as a pet.

58. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species classifies the sun bear as Vulnerable (VU), which means it’s considered high at risk of unnatural (that is, human-related) extinction. It was listed for inclusion in 2007 and hasn’t gotten any better since.

59. According to a 2007 statement from the IUCN Bear Specialist Group, the sun bear population has declined at least 30% over the past several decades. Considering how outdated that statistic, that number could be significantly worse by now.

60. Because we only know so much about them, it’s hard to get an exact number of their current population. However, some estimates say that there are probably less than a thousand sun bears left in the world.

Want some more video and visuals of sun bears in action? Check out this short clip!

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