SUN BEAR FACTS
Sun bears (or Helarctos malayanus) are the smallest and in our opinion, the most wonderful of the bear species. The understanding of sun bears is still far too limited but based on what we know it’s safe to say that they are fascinating, intelligent and vital creatures. Their behaviour protects and maintains the environment around them, ensuring that the biodiversity of their territories and beyond stays in a healthy equilibrium.
They are classified as vulnerable on the IUCN red list, so we must act now to ensure that they are protected and their numbers have a chance to recover. Along with fundraising, conservation and rehabilitation, it’s very important that more people learn about the amazing sun bear and what makes them so special and important.
As the smallest bear species, they are roughly half the length of the polar bear. However, don’t let their size fool you, they have incredibly powerful jaws and claws that can rip open the hardest of trees.
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To complicate matters a bit more, there are two subspecies of sun bear, one of which is smaller than the other.
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Malayan sun bear (H. m. malayanus) found throughout the tropical forests or mainland southeast asia and Sumatra.
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Bornean sun bear (H. m. euryspilus), the smaller of the two subspecies and as their name suggests, is found on the island of Borneo. The majority of the pictures on this site are the Borneo sun bear.
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Sun bears have several key differences to other bear species, most notably being their love for climbing trees (arboreal) and their lack of torpor (hibernation). Both factors were most likely influenced by the location and availability of food in the tropical forests.
Range
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Sun bears are found throughout the tropical lowland forests of Southeast Asia, ranging from Bangladesh to Borneo. However as the map shows, their range is decreasing fast, the areas in red are where the sun bears used to live but are now extinct.
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They try to avoid areas that have been impacted by human activities, such as logging and urban expansion. This makes it harder to track their numbers and to study their behavior. It also means that they are being rapidly pushed out of areas that should be safe for them and their future generations. This is one of several human factors that has led to them losing over 35% of their population in the past three decades.
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There is also some evidence that they used to be found as far south as Java but that was in the late Pleistocene era (over 11,000 years ago).
Keystone
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Sun bears are known as keystone species, this means that without them the biodiversity of the environments around them would change drastically without their presence. In some situations the removal of a keystone species could lead to the local ecosystem ceasing to exist altogether.
A keystone species would be almost impossible to replace due to the specific nature and range of the actions that they undertake.
“Sun bears play many important ecological roles in the forest ecosystem,” Siew Te Wong, founder of the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre.
Since they do not sleep for long periods of time like some bears they need to continuously find food sources. This means they are spreading the seeds of fruits, mixing the nutrients in soil (while digging for bugs and grubs) and munching on termites. This all helps to keep plants growing and the life-cycle of the forest in constant progress.
On top of this, their keen taste for honey helps other vulnerable species find homes in the trees. Once they find a bees nest high in the trees they use their strong claws to get access to the honey stored within the tree, this then becomes the perfect spot for hornbills to nest.
Characteristics and Behaviour
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Sun bears are very different to some of the more well known bears that you may know about. They don’t hibernate, they are not colossal in size and they don’t knock salmon out of rivers with their paws. However, they have many fascinating and wonderful characteristics that you won’t see in other bears.
Sun bears are easy to recognise by the horseshoe mark on their chest, each of which is just as unique as a human fingerprint. This is often thought to be the source of their most well known name, but you may also see them referred to as honey bears due to the lengths that they will go to get honey.
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Unlike other bears, they have adapted to an arboreal (tree climbing) way of life. This can be seen by their inward-turned front feet, strong forelimbs and large claws. It is thought that their tree climbing habits developed so that they could reach the food high up in the trees and also to avoid predators. In a similar way to orangutans, they also make nests high up in the trees so that they can sleep in safety.
In the wild they are usually active during the day, however when near areas of human activity they tend to be nocturnal.
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Sun bears are very intelligent animals, they have been known to observe humans and then work out how to get food out of locked cupboards. However, their most impressive and complex trait is their ability to mimic each other's facial expressions to a level that is usually only seen in primates. This type of play is believed to help them develop stronger bonds, which is odd in a creature that in nature, spends most of their time by themselves.
Diet
Sun bears are omnivores, meaning they eat plants and animals. While honey is probably their favourite food, they do hunt for a wide variety of foods, from termites, to seeds, to beetles and to fruit. This wide variety of food, some of which is very hard to reach, is thought to be the main reason for their amazingly long tongue. The tongue of a sun bear can reach 25cm in length, to put that into proportion, the average human adult tongue is 7.6 cm.
In good years, over half of their diet can come from three different trees, including figs, which they can eat whole. However this can lead to issues in bad years, especially when humans are involved. The forest fires lit by humans in order to clear farmland have a much wider ranging impact than just the land that gets burnt. It kills the insects (wasps) that the fig trees and other species rely on for pollination, which is required for fruit to grow. When fruit is scarce the bears eat more insects and bugs but this cannot replace the specific nutrients that they get from fruits and seeds.
Reproduction
Once sexually mature (after two or more years) they are able to breed at any time of year. This is different to other bear species that usually breed in spring due to seasons where they live. Once pregnant gestation can last from 3 to 8 months. This is due to their ability to delay fertilisation during times of high stress or low food availability.
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Sun bears will give birth to one or two cubs, which upon birth are completely dependent on their mother. It takes them 50 days to gain the majority of their sight and during the first two months they require stimulation to go to the toilet. These types of dependencies mean that mother bears are fiercely protective. The cubs will stay with their mother for roughly 3 years, during which time the mother bear will not have another litter. This is one of the main reasons that it takes sun bear populations a long time to recover from any sort of disaster.
Natural Threats
Sun bears' main threats may be humans but they do also have some other natural predators. If you want to learn more about human threats please check out this page.
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Due to their strength, claw size and bite not many animals are able to fight and kill sun bears. This is however a few, most notably tigers, occasionally leopards and very rarely pythons. It is thought that the loose skin around their necks is a defence method against such predators because it allows them to turn their heads round and bite back when a predator has them in their jaws.