pterodectyle

 

Quote:

 

Spectacled bears have only 13 pairs of ribs compared to 14 pairs in other bears, and are the last remaining representatives of the extinct short-faced bears. The largest specimen recorded is estimated to have weighed 1,000kg, but they were thought to average at about 600kg. They roamed the Americas about 2 million-10,000 years ago.

I never knew those bears were related to the short-faced bear ( the most carnivorous bears - though now extinct) whereas the spectacled bear seems to be the most hebivourous of all the bears.

More info:

Spectacled Bear

This is the only bear to be found in South America, it lives in Peru, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador and West Bolivia. Males weigh around 175kg and females average 65kgs....the largest bear ever recorded, weighed in at over 1000kg, it was a Polar Bear. They are usually dark brown or black with white patterns around the eyes and front of the face The markings can sometimes look like spectacles and this is where the name comes from!

They are excellent climbers, search for fruit and make roosting sites in trees. The favourite foods of Spectacled Bears are fruits, leaves, bamboo hearts, insects and small rodents. Meat is only around 4% of their diet. They normally sleep a lot through the day and are more active early and late.

Sadly this bear is hunted for its meat, skin and fat. This, along with habitat destruction, has caused the Spectacled bear to be an endangered species and very rare. They are hunted because locals believe they are livestock predators and yet they don’t eat meat in quantity, they have a liking for corn and get shot when raiding farms. Like all bears they are solitary except when mother and cubs are together.

We are very honoured to be able to bring these beautiful rare animals to South Lakes, it is the first time on mainland UK they have been seen. We are part of the European Endangered Species Breeding Programme and these 4 young female bears are here to grow and mature and then later we will be allocated a male for breeding.

Thanks go to Zurich Zoo, Switzerland and Paris Zoo, France for the co-operation in breeding these animals for the programme to save them from extinction.

http://www.wildanimalpark.co.uk/spectacledbear.htm

A Few Spectacled Bear Neighbors:

Andean coati (Nasuella olivacea): A brown-coated forest dweller of the high Andes. Females and young travel in social groups; adult males travel alone. While foraging on the ground, these animals hold their ringed tails high in the air.

Mountain tapir (Tapirus pinchaque): Another mammal unique to the Andes, this thick-coated, small pony-sized vegetarian lives in mountain forests up to the treeline.

Puma (Puma concolor): This shy predator stalks a variety of game in a variety of habitats, including the bears' forest homes. South America's most formidable predator, the jaguar (Panthera onca) also lives in bear habitat, but usually only up to about 6,000 feet.

Andean condor (Vultur gryphus): The wide-ranging condor, one of the world's largest flying birds, glides and soars high over open, mountainous terrain, looking for carrion.

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/Amazonia/Facts/fact-spectacled.cfm

It seems the spectacled bear lives one of the loneliest lives among all other bears plus there have not been records of aggression against other co-predators if not mistaken ( unless someone can show me one).
It only overlaps with the jaguar up to 600 feet. Higher than that and both animals do not interact at all.

pterodectyle

 

"Predators of spectacled bear cubs include mountain lion (Felis concolor), and possibly male bears. Spectacled bears appear to avoid jaguar (Panthera onca), suggesting that jaguar might be considered a predator. The elevational ranges of these two species in Perú and Bolivia do not overlap on the same mountain slope, but do for 900m of elevation if the entire Cordillera Oriental is considered. Here, jaguar can occur up to 1,500m in elevation and spectacled bears can descend as low as 600m in elevation (B. Peyton unpubl. data)."
www.elpasotexas.gov/elpasozoo/_documents/Chapter9bearsAP.

From taipan on the sloth bear vs jaguar thread.

taipan

 

Muzzle & Teeth
They have stocky bodies, short tails that are often hidden in the fur, short thick necks, small rounded ears, and the shortest relative muzzle length of the extant bears (Mondolfi 1971). Spectacled bears also have the largest zygomaticomandibularis muscle relative to its body size of any bear species (Davis 1955). The last two features, which are shared most similarly with the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), allow spectacled bears to grind tough fibrous foods, thereby securing its niche against competitors. Unlike the ursid bears whose fourth premolar has a more well-developed protoconid, an adaptation for shearing flesh (Kurtén 1966), the fourth premolar of spectacled bears has blunt lophs (like its other molars and premolars), has three pulp cavities instead of two, and can have three roots instead of the two that characterize ursid bears (Thenius 1976). The musculature and tooth characteristics are designed to support the stresses of grinding and crushing vegetation. Quite possibly spectacled bears are the most herbivorous of all bear species. They share the ursid dental formula of 42 teeth (i 3/3, c 1/1, p 4/4, and m 2/3). The chromosome number, 2n=52, is unique among bears (Ewer 1973; Nash and O’Brien 1987).



Distribution
are confident that there are at least 18,250 wild spectacled bears. Given the amount of area the bears occupy, there could be several times that amount. Spectacled bears currently occupy at least 50 habitat fragments totaling spectacled bears each. All of these occur on the eastern slope of the Oriental Andes. The largest habitat fragments are in Perú and Bolivia where over two-thirds of the bear’s range exists (Peyton et al. 1997).



Human-bear interactions
In pre-Colombian time, the spectacled bear was worshiped as a vehicle for change. Everything from the passage of sickness to health, of the underworld to heaven, of dark into light, and passage of time (one year to the next, adolescence to adulthood) was attributed to the powers of spectacled bears (Randall 1982). The Incas likewise considered the bear to have spiritual value, and sometimes let bears go after capturing them in predator roundups designed to protect their camelid herds from mountain lions (Tschudi 1844). By 1850, the influence of Spanish culture had supplanted these beliefs with one that viewed the bear as a symbol of machismo. The descendants of the Spanish Conquistadores lassoed and clubbed bears from horseback when the latter fed on shrub fruits (Capparis spp.) in the open desert (Peyton 1981). During the latter half of the 19th century, dogs were used by hunters, enabling hunters to kill bears in their forest refuges (Osgood 1914). Machoistic identification in the bear is now widespread among local farmers. Like their ancestors they drink the blood of bears as a communion to being more bear-like. Fat, which was once used by the Incas as a salve for tumors, (Baumann 1963) is now used to cure rheumatism and acne (Brack-Egg 1961). Baculums and paws fetch more than a month’s salary to a farmer. Bear scats are fed to cattle (Ricciuti 1983) and smeared on newborns to make them strong. A bear with 10 litres of fat could be worth more than US$115 to a farmer, or half his annual income. On average between 1–3 bears are killed per year in most valleys of the Cordillera Oriental. Fortunately, the international trade in bears and bear parts has not impacted Perú’s bear population. That is
likely to change due to the high presence of Asian companies doing business in Perú.



Spectacled bears are perhaps the least aggressive of all bear species towards humans. During four years of field work throughout Perú, B. Peyton (unpubl.) heard of only one human death caused by a spectacled bear that fell on a hunter after he shot it, and one woman who was bitten on the cheek after a surprise encounter with a bear in a cornfield. The predominant interactions are with bears that eat corn that has replaced their natural food sources. As many as 20% of the cornfields at the forest edge are besieged by spectacled bears. A few bears kill cattle, and many kills are wrongly attributed to spectacled bears. Hunter induced mortality of crop depredating spectacled bears has increased to the point where it is perceived to be as great a problem as habitat destruction (Yerena 1998). There is evidence that spectacled bears reduce both their habitat use and communication with each other following the introduction of cattle in wilderness areas (Downer pers. comm. 1993).

reddhole

 

The bite force study I previously posted seems to verify the Spectacaled Bear's high bite force:



Note: The grizzly used was a small specimen (skull length of 30.6 CM), so its results are likely understated.

taipan

 

Hanging on, bearly
South America's only bear species struggles to avoid extinction



By Scott LaFee
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. September 7, 2009

Unlike some of its ursine cousins, the Andean bear is not one to make a spectacle of itself.
It is not particularly big. An male adult rarely gets much heavier than 400 pounds and 6 feet in length, and females are considerably smaller. By comparison, an adult male polar bear typically exceeds 1,000 pounds in weight and 8 feet in length.
Nor do Andean bears necessarily inspire fear or immediate awe. Unlike, say, the grizzly bear, which is too large to escape perceived threats and so tends to defend itself aggressively, Andean bears are extremely capable climbers, preferring to run from danger and hide in treetops.
Armando Castellanos, project manager of the Andean Bear Conservation Project, recalls surprising several bears while conducting surveys with colleagues in the cloud forests of the Alto Choco Reserve in northern Ecuador.
“The bears instinctively climbed the nearest tree and headed for the treetops,” Castellanos said. “While climbing, they groaned and panted heavily, simultaneously urinating and defecating, perhaps because of the intense fright that we gave them.”
Nonetheless, Andean bears (Tremarctos ornatus) are singular creatures. They are the last surviving member of the subfamily Tremarctinae and the only indigenous bear species in South America.
But maybe for not much longer.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, whose “Red List” evaluates the extinction risk for thousands of animals around the world, says the Andean bear is vulnerable.
“The bear has a high risk of going extinct in the next 30 years,” said Russell Van Horn, an applied animal ecologist with the San Diego Zoo's Institute for Conservation Research. “That's just a few more generations of bears.”
Horn and the zoo are involved in one of several programs attempting to save the species from oblivion. In particular, they are assisting native efforts to more fully understand the biology of the bear in its Peruvian habitats, to help raise local awareness and to improve regional conservation planning and habitat protection.
The Andean bear project is one of three being highlighted at this year's “Celebration for the Critters,” an annual zoo-hosted event to raise funds for conservation research. All three featured programs are in Latin America: the bear project in Peru, an Andean condor reintroduction program in Colombia and Venezuela and a palm conservation initiative in Mexico and Peru.

No one knows how many Andean bears remain in the wild. Estimates range from a high of 20,000 to a few as 2,400. The lack of certainty is due in large part to the bears' shy and stealthy nature and, until recently, their relatively remote habitat.
It is that loss of remoteness that most endangers the species now. Human development and encroachment, from agriculture to new settlements, into previously inaccessible South American forests has significantly impacted the bear's numbers throughout its range.
“Thirty percent of its habitat has been lost since the 1990s,” said Van Horn, who is specifically studying how construction of the Interoceanic Highway through Peruvian forests is affecting the bear. “Three (percent) to 6 percent more habitat is lost each year.”
Until humans began to forcibly introduce themselves, wild Andean bears were mysterious and a bit mythological. Some indigenous cultures in South America revered them as spiritual mediators. “In some areas, they are considered a divine creature linking heaven to earth,” said Ximena Velez-Liendo, a University of Antwerp ecologist who studies Andean bears.
In other regions of South America, however, the bears are hunted for their meat, which is believed to impart strength; their fat, which is used to cure certain illnesses; their claws, which are supposed to bring good luck; and occasionally their gallbladders, which are used in traditional medicines, Velez-Liendo said.
Certainly no one views the bears as dangerous. They are the most vegetarian of bears, primarily consuming fruits and other vegetation, with occasional protein meals of insects, rodents, birds and carrion. Meat makes up perhaps 5 percent of the bears' diet, said Van Horn.
That appears to be changing in places where farming and cattle-raising have intruded into former Andean bear habitat, reducing their natural sources of food. Some bears have acquired a taste for cultivated corn, raiding fields at night and angering farmers.
“For the most part, the indigenous peoples like the bears,” said Van Horn. “They're the source of a lot of myths. But it's tough if you're a farmer barely eking out a living and a bear has just trashed your cornfield.”
Not surprisingly, some of these corn-eating bears have been shot and killed by farmers. Likewise for bears believed to have killed cattle grazing near forest lands. Often, multiple bears are killed without firm evidence of which was the offending culprit.
Andean bears are hardly natural born killers. In several published papers, Castellanos at the Andean Bear Conservation Project said Andean bears appear to simply jump on top of unwary cows and begin chomping on their shoulders. If the cow cannot escape and dies, its carcass may be dragged back into forest and consumed over several days. Such attacks, though, are rare.
The bears are very shy and work hard to avoid human detection and confrontation. Castellanos has documented cases of bears building platforms in trees to watch cornfields or herds of cattle, waiting until there was no sign of humans.
When approached by people, Andean bears invariably retreat. There are no verified accounts of fatal bear-human confrontations, at least none in which the person did not survive. Andean bear attacks are virtually unheard of.
For the bear, safety means getting as far away as quickly as possible — and that usually means climbing up into the thick, tangled canopy of rain and cloud forests, the bears' optimum habitat. Andean bears build platforms of bent and broken branches in treetops where they sometimes rest, store food or hide.
In his unexpected meetings with Andean bears, Castellanos observed the bears quickly building such platforms in trees. They were, he speculated, “made in an attempt to hide from the sight of the humans below.”
And if the humans don't go away? Castellanos said the bears sometimes break off and throw branches at the intruders. Then they try to escape by jumping from tree to tree until, eventually, they climb out onto the end of a limb, bite the branch to break it and fall, branch to branch, until they reach the ground. Some of the falls, he said, were quite long, as much as 30 feet, though the bears appeared unharmed.
“It seems to me that no animal of such weight should be able to jump from such heights without injury,” he said, marveling.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/sep/07/wild907/?science&zIndex=161647

pict

 

Two nice videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K0iBlm5Jv4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7_tI81OLfM

Ursus arctos

Jan 11 2012, 12:09 AM