Big Bear and Little Bear are fighting? Is there no room for two bears in one mountain?

Recently, the fight between two Asian black bears on Heixiazi Island has become a hot topic. Some netizens commented: "Why did Big Bear and Little Bear fight?

Video screenshots

In fact, judging from their morphological features, Big Bear and Little Bear have brown hair and round ears, so they should be brown bears (although they also have white spots on their chests similar to those of Asian black bears, but they are relatively short).

Social rules of Asiatic black bears

Ursids such as Asiatic black bears and brown bears are all solitary animals . Unlike the two adult brothers living together in the cartoons, the little bears will go out on their own when they grow up and will not bring their brothers and sisters with them.

Asian black bear photographed at Tianjin Zoo

In the animal world, brothers living together are mainly found among male lions, who cooperate in hunting and share their territories. Other animals that share territories include spotted hyenas and meerkats, which are matriarchal.

Male bears, on the other hand, will live on their own when they are about two or three years old, and will prevent other Asian black bears from approaching them. After the age of four, they will mate with several female bears during the short mating season, but they will not take care of the cubs. After the female bears give birth to the cubs, they will take care of them by themselves. In addition, cubs born in the same litter may not have the same father.

Note: Asian black bears mate in summer and autumn, but the mating months vary in different places, for example, in Northeast China it is June-July.

Lions sharing a territory in a coalition. Image source: https://www.andbeyond.com/advice/africa/frequently-asked-questions-about-the-lionscape-coalition/

Another two Asian black bears playing together. Source: travelblog.org

The Asian black bear in the video, also known as "black bear" or "blind bear", has black hair, round ears like Mickey Mouse, and a large white spot on the chest similar to a white scarf . They are permanent residents in the forests of eastern Asia, Indochina, and parts of South Asia, from Taiwan to the foot of the Indian mountains, from the Japanese islands to the east of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, from the forests and snowfields in the north to the tropical monsoon forests in Thailand.

Asiatic black bear photographed in Beijing Zoo

How did the Asian black bear "conquer" the world?

At the beginning of the Early Pleistocene, early black bears, that is, the original subspecies of the Asiatic black bear, were active in the forests of southern China. In the Middle and Late Pleistocene, they appeared in northern China and many of today's distribution areas, such as Spain, Italy, the Balkan Peninsula, Germany, France and other countries and regions, which were also the home of the Asiatic black bear at that time.

After the Ice Age, the distribution of Asiatic black bears decreased a lot, but many people still saw Asiatic black bears standing on their legs in the forest or climbing trees, and regarded them as the "snowman" or "wild black man" in civilized legends.

In fact, according to DNA sample testing, the so-called "snowman" is actually an Asian black bear or its big brother, the brown bear. The legend of the snowman is false, but it is true that the Asian black bear has formed different subspecies - including the Northeast subspecies from the three northeastern provinces to the Korean Peninsula, the Japanese subspecies in Japan, the Sichuan subspecies in southern China and the Tibetan subspecies in the Himalayas, the Taiwan subspecies in Formosa, and the Pakistani subspecies in South Asia, etc. There are differences between these subspecies, for example, the Tibetan black bear has relatively long hair.

Cute image of the Formosan black bear subspecies Source: https://taiwanholland.com/taiwan-a-to-z/formosan-bear/

Tibetan black bear subspecies Source: indiabiodiversity.org

Life story of the Asiatic black bear

The forest is where the Asian black bear lives and where they get food. **The short and sharp claws of the Asian black bear are more suitable for climbing trees. The fruits and buds of the plants on the trees, the fungi bamboo fungus under the trees, and the delicious honey in the beehive are all the feasts of the Asian black bear. **The canine teeth of the Asian black bear are relatively short and the molars are well developed, which means that compared with their big brothers, brown bears and polar bears, they eat relatively less meat and prefer to be vegetarian.

They are bulky and cannot chase prey as fast as tigers and wolves. However, the relatively small number of prey does not mean that there is absolutely no prey. They will kill (with their forelimbs and mandibles) fish and frogs, as well as smaller animals and insects, birds flying in the sky, and even small muntjacs, Eurasian wild boars, and even the savage and huge takin that often hurts people. There is a record that Asian black bears have become delicious meals.

The Asian black bear has short canine teeth, but is also quite fierce. Image source: zoochat.com

The author photographed the takin at the Beijing Zoo

The biggest natural enemies of the Asian black bear are the "king of the forest" - the tiger, and the "big brother" brown bear. The relatively docile, smaller Asian black bears that can climb trees will use the tree-climbing method to avoid these two large guys with poor tree-climbing skills. However, there are also records of larger Asian black bears fighting tigers and driving away tigresses. In addition, jackals and wolves sometimes hurt Asian black bears.

The picture shows the Ussuri brown bear subspecies, which is found in northeast China. Source: critter.science

How big are Asian black bears? It depends on where and what gender the Asian black bear is from. On the Korean Peninsula, the three northeastern provinces and southeastern Russia's Ursus thibetanus ussuricus (the one in this video) is the largest, with male bears weighing an average of 120-150 kilograms, and some even weighing over 200 kilograms . The average weight of female bears can exceed 80 or 90 kilograms. The Japanese subspecies of black bears are not that big, and there are not many that weigh over 120 kilograms. The Sichuan subspecies of black bears in southern China are somewhere in between. In addition, there are also huge Asian black bears in the Kashmir region of South Asia.

Asian black bear Japanese subspecies Source: zoochat official website

Living in different places, their habits are also slightly different. Hibernation is a different place for black bears in the north and south. Every September in the north, a large number of nuts will become a special meal for Asian black bears to "put on weight in autumn", while in the south, many Asian black bears do not hibernate or move to live in places with lower altitudes.

However, if the mother bear is pregnant, she will choose to hibernate regardless of the north or south. During hibernation, they do not eat or drink, and rely on milk to feed their newborn babies. They will choose an empty tree as a warehouse, or a cave in the ground or a stone cave. These caves are suitable for resting, but there is also the risk of being discovered by tigers.

Asiatic black bear looking for food Source: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/asiatic-black-bear-brain-surgery-national-geographic-456709

Note: The hibernation period of Asian black bears in the Qinling Mountains is shorter than that in the north, from January to March.

Asiatic Black Bears and Human Civilization

After the end of the Ice Age, many large animals that survived appeared in human civilization as some "great" images.

For example, the tiger became one of the twelve zodiac animals, the lion became a sacred beast in the temple and a gatekeeper to ward off evil spirits, the Asian elephant and Asian buffalo became corresponding mounts for the gods in Buddhism and Taoism, and the American black bear was the incarnation of the most sacred spirit in the mythology of some Indian peoples.

What about the Asian black bear? Actually, it's not bad. Huangdi was actually Youxiong, and Fuxi was called "Huangxiong". The word "Xiong" in ancient Chinese specifically refers to the Asian black bear (brown bears use the word "罴"), and dreaming of an Asian black bear is considered a sign of giving birth to a big fat boy. "Wei Xiong and Wei Xiong are auspicious signs for men" is the original words in the Book of Songs.

In Japanese mythology, the Asian black bear is considered to represent the power of the mountain god, while the Oroqen people believe that the ethnic origin is "human-bear symbiosis". However, the cutest moment of the Asian black bear is when Kumamon appears. Its cute image and emoticon cartoons are very popular in China, Japan and other countries.

Image source of the young bear child: babyanimalzoo.com

Image source of Kumamon: wallpapers.com

Of course, the fat and clumsy appearance of Asiatic black bears also gives them the image of being "stupid".

The story of "a bear breaking corn" is deeply rooted in people's minds - although there is a factual error in this story (Asian black bears eat corn directly by chewing it) , if Asian black bears were really that stupid, there wouldn't be so many farmers afraid of Asian black bears plundering their livestock and crops.

A 2016 study of Asiatic black bears in a protected area in Bhutan showed that nearly half of the locals interviewed mentioned that bears had harmed livestock, poultry and crops, and more than half believed that killing Asiatic black bears might ease conflicts. Near the Changqing Nature Reserve in Yang County, Shaanxi Province, some people also said that their beehives were often destroyed. The Baoshan area of ​​Gaoligong Mountain has become a disaster area for Asiatic black bears from midsummer to early autumn.

In this regard, it is extremely important to use some eviction measures based on artificial intelligence (which can emit sounds to drive away black bears after identification) to provide reasonable economic compensation to local people.

An Asiatic black bear captured in Myanmar. Image source: myanmarmix.com

Amid the conflict, some people began poaching and encroaching on black bear habitats, torturing Asian black bears to extract their bile.

Asian black bears released on the Korean Peninsula Source: IUCN official website

Asiatic black bears in a certain district Source:

https://www.animalsasia.org/au/education/education-archive/moon-bear-day-why-the-sun-must-shine-and-the-moon-allowed-to-glow.html

This big guy who might have stolen the robes is now a national second-class protected animal. Although it has not lost too much habitat in China due to its omnivorous nature and relatively docile temperament, it still has a potential survival crisis. What we need to do is to be respectful and stay away from them.

References:

Waqar, U., Mahmood, T., Mushtaq, M. et al. Historical and current distribution ranges of the Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus). Sci Rep 14, 2505 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-51588-5

https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Ursus_thibetanus/

Iibuchi, Ruriko; Nakano, Noriko; Nakamura, Tadashi; Urashima, Tadasu; Shimozuru, Michito; Murase, Tetsuma;Tsubota, Toshio Change in body weight of mothers and neonates and in milk composition during denning period in captive Japanese black bears (Ursus thibetanus japonicus) Japanese Journal of Veterinary Research, 57(1), 13-22 2009-05 10.14943/jjvr.57.1.13

Phylogeographic and Demographic Analysis of the Asian Black Bear (Ursus thibetanus) Based on Mitochondrial DNA Jiaqi Wu, Naoki Kohno , Shuhei Mano, Yukio Fukumoto, Hideyuki Tanabe, Masami Hasegawa, Takahiro Yonezawa Published: September 25, 2015

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Assessing patterns of human–Asiatic black bear interaction in and around Wangchuck Centennial National Park, BhutanYonten Jamtsho a, Sangay Wangchukbhttps://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2351989416300786

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Carnivores from the late Pleistocene locality Melitzia Cave (Mani peninsula, Greece) Marianthi Tzortzi, Panagiotis D. Sianis, George Iliopoulos and Andreas Darlas Journal: Historical Biology, 2024, Volume 36, Number 2, Page 266 DOI: 10.1080/08912963.2022.2161380

Kozakai C, Seryodkin I, Pigeon KE, et al. Asiatic Black Bear (Ursus thibetanus). In: Penteriani V, Melletti M, eds. Bears of the World: Ecology, Conservation and Management. Cambridge University Press; 2020:110-121.

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IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

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Author: Daqing Shenlong, a graduate student of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a member of the Shanghai Science Writers Association

Editor: Dong Xiaoxian