46 Fun Facts About Bear Trivia for Kids

How many kinds of bear are alive in the world today?

Eight is all there are, and for years nobody was sure the giant panda belonged on the list: scientists argued over whether it was a bear or a kind of raccoon, until its DNA settled it.

What is a bear's long winter sleep called?

Hibernation lets a bear go for months without eating, drinking or going to the toilet, living all that time off what its body stored up beforehand.

Which is the smallest kind of bear?

The sun bear of Southeast Asia's rainforests is named for the golden patch on its chest, which is said to look like the rising sun and is a little different on every bear.

What do giant pandas eat almost all day long?

Bamboo makes up about 99 percent of a giant panda's meals, but there is so little goodness in it that the panda has to spend around 12 hours a day eating just to get enough.

Which country do giant pandas come from?

China is the only country where they live wild, mostly in the mountain forests of Sichuan, and nearly every panda in a foreign zoo is only on loan: babies born abroad are sent to live in China too.

What does a giant panda use the extra 'thumb' on each front paw for?

Holding its food is the job of what is really an enlarged wrist bone, not a thumb at all: it works like a hook, so the panda can sit upright and keep a stalk steady while it chews.

What colour is a polar bear's skin under its fur?

A polar bear's skin is black, which helps it soak up heat. Its fur only looks white because the hairs have no colour and bounce light back.

What is a polar bear's favourite food?

Seals have to come up for air, so a polar bear waits silently beside a breathing hole in the sea ice, and when hunting is good it may eat only the fatty blubber and skin.

Where in the world do polar bears live?

Near the North Pole, on the frozen sea at the top of the world, is their only home, so a wild polar bear never meets a penguin: penguins live almost entirely in the southern half of the world.

Why do polar bears have small bumps on the pads of their paws?

To grip slippery ice, a polar bear gets extra help from its claws, which are short, sharp and hooked: they dig in for a firm footing, and the same hooks help it keep hold of struggling prey.

Which sense do bears use most to find their food?

Smell matters to a bear the way eyesight matters to us, and its nose may be the best of any mammal's, keener even than a dog's.

Baby bears are called what?

Cubs start out tiny, blind and almost bare, and even a brown bear that will grow to weigh hundreds of kilograms is born weighing only about half a kilogram.

Which bear has a big hump of muscle on its shoulders that helps it dig?

Grizzly bears carry a mass of muscle there that lets them press down hard as they dig for roots and ground squirrels, and the hump is a quick way to tell them from a black bear.

In Alaska, big brown bears stand at waterfalls to catch which fish jumping upstream?

Salmon are so plentiful at the height of their run that a bear can afford to be fussy: it eats just the fattiest parts, the skin, brain and eggs, and leaves the rest.

Which continent is home to the spectacled bear, the only bear that lives there?

South America's only bear lives high in the Andes mountains, and the creamy rings around its eyes that give it its name are different on every bear, like a fingerprint.

What is a grown-up male bear called?

A grown-up male bear is called a boar and a female is called a sow, the same names used for adult pigs.

Which bear from India slurps up ants and termites with its long lips like a vacuum cleaner?

Sloth bears have no top front teeth, which leaves a handy gap to suck insects through, and they are the only bears whose babies regularly ride around on their mother's back.

Which bear has a pale crescent-moon shape on its chest and is nicknamed the moon bear?

The Asian black bear wears its cream crescent all the way from Iran to Japan, and it is built for climbing trees, with strong front legs and curved claws.

Which is the most common bear in the world, with more of them than all the other bears put together?

American black bears thrive because they are not fussy: they eat almost anything the season offers and live everywhere from the forests of Canada to the dry mountains of Mexico.

Bears walk with the whole foot flat on the ground, heel and all, just like which of these?

People and bears both walk on the whole sole, which scientists call plantigrade, whereas cats and dogs go about on their toes and horses on the very tips of theirs.

A group of bears is sometimes called what?

A sleuth in this sense has nothing to do with detectives: it is an old word for slowness, and it is rarely needed, because grown bears mostly live alone.

Which cuddly Australian animal is often called a bear even though it is not one?

The koala is a marsupial, carrying its baby in a pouch like a kangaroo, and it sleeps for up to 20 hours a day because its diet of tough leaves gives it so little energy.

Which president gave the teddy bear its name?

Theodore Roosevelt, nicknamed Teddy, refused to shoot a tied-up bear on a 1902 hunting trip in Mississippi. Brooklyn shopkeeper Morris Michtom then sold a stuffed bear as 'Teddy's bear'.

Winnie-the-Pooh was named after a real bear that lived at which zoo?

Winnie lived at London Zoo from 1914 until her death in 1934, after a soldier brought her to England during the First World War. Christopher Robin Milne loved visiting her.

The real bear that gave Winnie-the-Pooh his name was herself named after which city?

Lieutenant Harry Colebourn bought the little bear for 20 dollars from a hunter in 1914 and named her Winnie after his home city, Winnipeg.

Where do Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends live?

The Hundred Acre Wood is a real place in disguise: Milne lived on the edge of Ashdown Forest in Sussex and set the stories there, and visitors come from all over the world to find Poohsticks Bridge.

Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga and Tigger in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories were all based on what?

Christopher Robin's toys were real, bought for A. A. Milne's young son, and the original teddy bear, donkey, piglet, kangaroo and tiger are kept at the New York Public Library.

Paddington Bear travelled to England from which country?

Peru was a late change: Michael Bond first wrote that Paddington came from 'darkest Africa', until his agent pointed out that no bears live there.

What is Paddington Bear's favourite food?

Marmalade sandwiches are such a trademark that Paddington keeps a spare under his hat for emergencies, and in a 2022 film for her Platinum Jubilee, Queen Elizabeth II pulled her own out of her handbag.

Which bear teaches Mowgli the Law of the Jungle in The Jungle Book?

Baloo was also the first to stand up for Mowgli: when the wolves argued over whether to keep the helpless baby, the old bear, the only outsider allowed at their council, spoke in his favour.

Smokey Bear is a famous cartoon bear who reminds everyone to prevent what?

Wildfires made Smokey so famous that he was given his own ZIP code, 20252, to cope with his mail, and the living Smokey was a real orphaned baby bear rescued from a New Mexico forest fire in 1950.

What is Yogi Bear always trying to steal?

Picnic baskets, snatched from visitors to Jellystone Park: Yogi began in 1958 as a side act on The Huckleberry Hound Show, and proved so popular that he got a show of his own in 1961.

The Big Dipper is part of which constellation?

Ursa Major is the Great Bear, and the Big Dipper is just seven bright stars within it; a line through the two at the front of its bowl leads to the North Star, which is how travellers have long found north.

During the Second World War, a real brown bear named Wojtek was made a soldier in which country's army?

Poland's soldiers could only take their pet bear to Italy by enlisting him, so Wojtek got a rank and number as a private, and a British veteran recalled his shock at seeing a bear carrying shells at Monte Cassino.

Scientists tell a bear's age by counting rings inside which body part?

A tooth grows a new layer around its root every year, so wildlife scientists pull a tooth, slice it thinly and count the rings under a microscope to learn how old the bear is.

Which US state's flag shows a bear?

California made the bear flag official in 1911 while the real animal was vanishing: the last known wild bear of that kind in the state was killed in 1922, so in California it survives only on the flag.

Which German city has a bear on its flag and coat of arms?

Berlin has used the bear as a city emblem since at least 1280, and the animal still hands out the prizes: the top award at the city's famous film festival is a statuette called the Golden Bear.

Which two words come from the ancient Greek word for bear, because of a bear constellation in the northern sky?

Arctic and Antarctic were named for stars, not animals, yet one name came true by luck: Antarctic means opposite the bear, and the land it names has no bears at all.

What colour is a giant panda when it is first born?

Pink skin shows through a newborn giant panda's thin, pale baby hair, so it looks nothing like its parents, and the dark markings only start to appear after a week or two.

How big is a newborn giant panda compared with its mother?

About 1/800 of her weight: a newborn giant panda is roughly the size of a stick of butter, so tiny that its mother can cradle it in one paw.

A panda mother cares for only one baby at a time, so how do zookeepers help her raise twins?

Swap them over, again and again: while one twin is with its mother, keepers look after the other, so both get her care and her milk. In the wild she would raise only the stronger twin.

The sun bear is nicknamed the honey bear, and which part of its body is extra long to help it feed?

Its tongue is so long that, once its claws have ripped open a tree trunk or a bees' nest, the sun bear can lick out the honey and insects hiding deep inside.

Which Swiss city's name is said by legend to come from the German word for bear?

Bern's founder, Duke Berthold V, is said to have vowed to name his new city after the first animal caught on his hunt, which was a bear. The name may really be older, but a bear has been on the city's shield ever since.

What does the girl's name Ursula mean?

Little she-bear is what Ursula means in Latin, from ursa, a female bear, and the name caught on in medieval England thanks to the popular legend of Saint Ursula.

What is special about a polar bear's long outer guard hairs?

They are hollow, like tiny straws filled with air, which helps to keep the bear's body heat in, and a second, thick woolly coat lies underneath.

Each autumn, an Alaskan national park runs an online vote to crown its champion bear, judged on being what?

The fattest bear wins Fat Bear Week, because fat means survival: the bears of Katmai National Park eat as much as they can all autumn, then go the whole winter without eating or drinking.