Sloth Bear

[Pckts]

Instead of appreciating the images you post this?


"The true identity of Kipling’s “sleepy brown bear” is a bit of an enigma: Baloo’s physical description in the book would suggest a sloth bear, but his diet of nuts and honey runs counter to that species’ insect-eating preferences. Baloo’s name, which simply means “bear” in Hindustani, lends no additional clues.
“The problem is that The Jungle Book is fiction, and all of Kipling’s characters are a mixture of imaginary types and real animals, so it’s impossible to know the species for sure,” says Kaori Nagai, a Kipling scholar at the University of Kent. But Kipling did use 19th-century naturalists’ writings while crafting the book, and one of his sources was an 1884 natural history text that notes that the common Indian sloth bear is “as a rule vegetarian.” Given that sloth bears tend to sleep a lot during the day and can be found throughout India, most scholars agree that Baloo likely fits this label. And Disney's 1967 animated movie has Baloo teaching Mowgli to eat ants.
Sloth bears, which are found only in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and India, are currently listed as “vulnerable” by the IUCN, but they “are quite widespread and safe in India in terms of conservation, although they are under some pressure from trade for their gallbladders,” says Ullas Karanth, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s India program. The bears are also abundant in many reserves in India, he adds, “where they are especially adapted to eating termites—and fond of honey.”

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/...e-science/

And of course in Disneys newest Movie, Baloo is a sloth bear. Not by appearance but by specification.  Just like the "indian" wolves that look like tundra wolves and the Gigantopithecus that looks like an orangutan. Reply