Sloth Bear

[brotherbear]

Like the grizzly, the sloth bear is a ground dweller who often must go nose-to-nose with large predators. Fortunately for the sloth bear he has evolved long deeply-curved claws, an adaptation for digging for ants and termites. These make effective weapons. He also has some long canine teeth, even though the rest of his teeth are weak ( as bears go ) and his bite-force is the least of all living bears, due to his dietary habits. Being a ground dweller and having at least one predator larger than himself would not cause him to become pound-for-pound the strongest of bears ( which he isn't ). The Pleistocene grizzly was not only facing big cats near his equal in size ( as the Amur brown bear does today in parts of Russia ), but savage big cats who lived and hunted in prides ( Smilodon ) and other, more carnivorous bears, that were much bigger than himself. Consider too the mother grizzly who was forced to defend her cubs from giant wolves and big cats every bit as big or bigger than herself. 
However, it was not the predators who created in the grizzly his powerful physique. It was and is his dietary lifestyle of digging in hard ground, moving huge rocks, and tearing into trees after bee-hives. It was eons of hard work which has made Ursus arctos pound-for-pound the strongest of living bears. Reply