Nutrition

The Malayan Sun Bear is an omnivore and obtains its food in many ways. The sun bear has long claws used to dig up roots and to find insects such as termites. They also scavenge for berries that are in season using a highly effective sense of smell. Sun bears also eat fruit by climbing trees when the fruit is in season. Honey is also commonly eaten by sun bears by using long tongues and protruding lips to extract the honey from bee's nests. Using strong, sharp canines, sun bears can hunt and kill small animals such as birds and rodents (natgeo).

To see a Sun Bear using their long claws to eat termites, click here

Sun bears are very nocturnal creatures even though most pictures of them are in the daylight. This because most of the pictures of the sun bear are from zoos and not from natural sun bears. Sun Bears rarely go outside during the day to avoid extreme heats. They collect fruit, berries, and roots during the night as well as hunt small animals (natgeo).

Unlike most bears, the sun bears diet does not change from season to season. This is probably because most other bears live in climates where the resources change from summer to winter due to unproductive conditions. The sun bear lives in a climate where the same fruit and berries are in highly productive conditions year round. This means that unlike other bears, the sun bear has a consistent diet and does not change much throughout the year (Wong et al.).

All the food Helarctos malayanus eats gives it energy throughout the day. To distribute this energy efficiently, the sun bear utilizes a closed circulatory system like most mammals. The heart for the sun bear is 4 chambered and receives oxygenated blood from the lungs. The heart then sends the oxygenated blood to every part of the body. After the body uses the oxygen, the deoxygenated blood is sent back through the heart and to the lungs where it can then get more oxygen (zooplanets). Most mammals use closed circulatory systems because they are more efficient for the size of the mammals.

Malayan sun bears are a host for some parasites. A cestode, called Pentorchis arkteios, which is similar to a tape worm that lives in the digestive tract of vertebrates. Another parasite that lives in the sun bears small intestine is Ancylostoma malayanum, a species of hookworm. There also have been found three species of tick that live on the sun bear, Haemaphysalis semermis, H. leachi and H. hystricis (Rogers).

Sun Bear (Helarctos malayanus)

Nutrition

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