The popular but erroneous perception of the world's bears includes perhaps three or four species, all inhabiting regions from the Arctic down to relatively cold forests in North America, Europe, and Russian Siberia.
It is true that polar bears roam the ice \Pfloes\p and coasts of the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic, and that the brown bear in all its forms -- probably some fifty subspecies, including the grizzly and Alaska's so-called Kodiak bear -- primarily inhabits the northern halves of North America, Europe, and Asia. But the total global range of the \Pbruin\p family extends into the Southern Hemisphere and the tropics.
\BDescription:\b The preferred habitat of the polar bear is where there is constant freezing and thawing of ice.
\BPhoto:\b Walt Enders - Ellis Nature Photography
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"Brown Bear Distribution",2,browndis.bmp,b,0
Japan has a \Premnant\p population of brown bears (about three thousand) on the island of Hokkaido, at the same latitude as Manchuria's brown bears. On the Asian continent it ranges farther south, into southern China, India, and Iran. At one time it was fairly abundant in northern Mexico. Its way of life depends on remote mountain strongholds, not on northern latitudes, and it has a wider distribution than any other bear.
\BDescription:\b Brown Bear Distribution Map
\BDrawing:\b Webster Publishing
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"Spectacled Bear Distribution",3,specbdis.bmp,b,0
The spectacled bear (so named for its white or tawny facial markings, which are quite variable and do not always ring the eyes) exists in scattered populations from Venezuela southward through the Andes into Peru and northernmost Chile.
South America's only bear, it is also called the Andean bear, another less than totally accurate name. It chiefly inhabits thickly forested mountain slopes but is also found on arid coastal scrublands.
\BDescription:\b Spectacled Bear Distribution Map
\BDrawing:\b Webster Publishing
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"American Black Bear Distribution",4,blak1dis.bmp,b,0
The American black bear ranges from Alaska eastward across the continent and southward to Florida, the Gulf Coast, and northern Mexico.
\BDescription:\b American Black Bear Distribution Map
\BDrawing:\b Webster Publishing
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"Sun Bear Distribution",5,sunbdis.bmp,b,0
The world's smallest species -- not much bigger than a large dog and seldom exceeding 110 pounds (49.5 kilograms) -- is the little black sun bear found in tropical and \Psubtropical\p regions of southern and southeastern Asia, including the Malay Peninsula and the islands of Borneo, Sumatra, and Java.
The sun bear is named for its pale or yellowish chest crescent; in Eastern folklore a yellow crescent represents the rising sun, though to Western eyes it resembles a crescent moon. This is another quite variable marking, sometimes absent, blackly speckled, or forming an irregular patch or bull's-eye.
\BDescription:\b Sun Bear Distribution Map
\BDrawing:\b Webster Publishing
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"Asiatic Black Bear Distribution",6,blak2dis.bmp,b,0
The primary range of the Asiatic black bear is southern Asia. This also includes Pakistan, Afghanistan and northern India, China and southeast Asia. Populations also exist in eastern Russia, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.
The latter name refers to a white or ivory chest marking, usually a crescent or \Pchevron\p but occasionally faint or absent. With equal accuracy it might also be called the ruffed bear, for the long black fur on the neck and shoulders forms a thick ruff, almost like a sideward-flaring \Pmane\p.
\BDescription:\b Asiatic Black Bear Distribution Map
\BDrawing:\b Webster Publishing
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"Sloth Bear Distribution",7,slothdis.bmp,b,0
In the late eighteenth century, a \Pcurator\p at the British Museum, misguided by fanciful descriptions and the long, deeply curved claws on strange skins sent from India by colonial big-game hunters, classified a new species as a "bear sloth" -- a sloth with bearish characteristics. But even a layman could see that it was a bear -- albeit a very unusual, unbearish bear -- and in 1810 the great French \Panatomist\p Georges Cuvier corrected the error by renaming it sloth bear.
So it has been called ever since, although it is also, and more appropriately, called the Indian bear. This is a very adaptable species, found from the base of the Himalayas southward to the tip of India and the island of Sri Lanka, as far eastward as Assam, and in Nepal's Chitwan National Park. Deforestation has severely reduced its numbers, but it can live in a wide variety of wooded habitat, from northern thorn forests to humid, tropical jungle.
\BDescription:\b Sloth Bear Distribution Map
\BDrawing:\b Webster Publishing
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"Polar Bear Distribution",8,polardis.bmp,b,0
The polar bear is found in the polar areas of the northern \Phemisphere\p. There are seven distinct polar bear populations: central Siberia; Svalbard-Franz Josef Land; Greenland; the Canadian Arctic archipelago; northern Alaska; western Alaska and Wrangel Island; and the Hudson Bay - James Bay populations.
\BDescription:\b Polar Bear Distribution Map
\BDrawing:\b Webster Publishing
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"Giant Panda Distribution",9,gpanddis.bmp,b,0
The giant panda only exists in six small areas on the eastern rim of the Tibetan Plateau in China.
