Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Carnivora > Ursidae > Melursus > Melursus ursinus

Melursus ursinus (Sloth Bear)

Synonyms: Bradypus ursinus; Prochilus ursinus; Ursus ursinus

Wikipedia Abstract

The sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), also known as the labiated bear, is a nocturnal insectivorous bear species native to the Indian subcontinent. The sloth bear evolved from ancestral brown bears during the Pleistocene and shares features found in insect-eating mammals through convergent evolution. The population isolated in Sri Lanka is considered a subspecies. Unlike brown and black bears, sloth bears have lankier builds, long, shaggy coats that form a mane around the face, long, sickle-shaped claws, and a specially adapted lower lip and palate used for sucking insects. Sloth bears breed during spring and early summer and give birth near the beginning of winter. They feed on termites, honeybee colonies, and fruits. Sloth bears sometimes attack humans who encroach on their territories. His
View Wikipedia Record: Melursus ursinus

Infraspecies

Melursus ursinus inornatus (Sri Lankan sloth bear)
Melursus ursinus ursinus (Indian sloth bear)

Endangered Species

Status: Vulnerable
View IUCN Record: Melursus ursinus

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
8
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
54
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 16.5
EDGE Score: 4.25
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  220.463 lbs (100.00 kg)
Birth Weight [1]  400 grams
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Frugivore, Herbivore
Diet - Fruit [2]  10 %
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  70 %
Diet - Plants [2]  20 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  3 years
Male Maturity [1]  3 years
Gestation [1]  6 months 18 days
Litter Size [1]  2
Litters / Year [3]  1
Maximum Longevity [1]  33 years
Nocturnal [4]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [3]  5.576 feet (170 cm)
Weaning [1]  76 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Himalaya Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan No
Indo-Burma Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam No
Western Ghats and Sri Lanka India, Sri Lanka No

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

+ Click for partial list (41)Full list (138)

Predators

Panthera pardus (Leopard)[6]
Panthera tigris (Tiger)[6]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Ancylostoma caninum[8]

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 4Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 5Feeding ecology of sloth bears in a disturbed area in central India, H.S. Bargali, Naim Akhtar,and N.P.S. Chauhan, Ursus 15(2):212-217 (2004)
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 7"Fig-eating by vertebrate frugivores: a global review", MIKE SHANAHAN, SAMSON SO, STEPHEN G. COMPTON and RICHARD CORLETT, Biol. Rev. (2001), 76, pp. 529–572
♦ 8Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0