Bhago Bhalu aaya!!!! A Sloth Bear in the wild!
- 10 years ago
Sloth Bear ambling along near cultivation, at the edge of a village.
A sloth bear near the boundary of Panna National Park (Madhya Pradesh, India) running around in sarsoan (mustard / rapeseed) fields near a village! While Sloth Bears can be quite harmful, unpredictable and dangerous due to their poor eyesight and easy excitability, this fellow was quite oblivious to the presence of yours truly - the cameraman, and went about his job quite diligently - scooping up termites from an ant-hill, loping around and just having fun!
The sloth bear (Ursus ursinus = Melursus ursinus), also known as the labiated bear, is a nocturnal insectivorous species of bear found wild within 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 as 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. They feed on termites, honeybee colonies and fruits. Sloth bears sometimes attack humans that encroach on their territory. Historically, humans have drastically reduced their habitat and diminished their population by hunting them for food and products such as their baculum and claws. These bears have been used for as performing pets due to their tameable nature.
Sloth bears are expert hunters of termites, which they locate by smell. On arriving at an ant-hill, they scrape at the structure with their claws till they reach the large combs at the bottom of the galleries, and will disperse the dirt with violent puffs. The ants are then sucked up through the muzzle, producing a hoovering sound which can be heard 180 meters away. Their olfactory senses are strong enough to detect grubs three feet below ground. Unlike other bears, they do not congregate in feeding groups. They rarely prey on other mammals. Sloth bears may supplement their diet with fruit and plant matter: in March and April, they will eat the fallen petals of mowha trees and are partial to mangoes, sugar cane, the pods of the Golden Shower Tree and the fruit of the jack-tree. Sloth bears are extremely fond of honey. When feeding their cubs, sows are reported to regurgitate a mixture of half digested jack fruit, wood apples and pieces of honey comb. This sticky substance hardens into a dark yellow circular bread-like mass which is fed to the cubs. This "bear's bread" is considered a delicacy by some of India's natives.
According to Robert Armitage Sterndale, in his Mammalia of India: [The sloth bear] is also more inclined to attack man unprovoked than almost any other animal, and casualties inflicted by it are unfortunately very common, the victim being often terribly disfigured even if not killed, as the bear strikes at the head and face. Blanford was inclined to consider bears more dangerous than tigers...
One specimen, known as the Sloth bear of Mysore, was singlehandedly responsible for the deaths of 12 people and the mutilation of 2 dozen others before being shot by Kenneth Anderson. Although sloth bears have attacked humans, they rarely become man-eaters. Dunbar-Brander's Wild Animals of Central India mentions a case in which a sow with two cubs began a six week reign of terror in Chanda, a district of the Central Provinces, during which more than one of their victims had been eaten, while the sloth bear of Mysore partially ate at least three of its victims.
bhaloo bhalu bear mowgli jungle book reench reech baloo
Local names of a sloth bear in different languages -
Bengali: Bhalluk
Gond: Yerid, Yedjal and Asol
Hindi: Rinch, Bhalu and Adam-zad
Marathi: Aswal
Kol: Bana
Malayalam: Pani karudi
Oraon: Bir Mendi
Sanskrit: Riksha, Bhalluka
Source - Wikipedia
Panna National Park is situated in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, at a distance of around 57 km from Khajuraho. The region is also famous for its diamond industry. The park is known worldwide for its wild cats, including tigers as well as deer and antelope.
Source - http://www.pannanationalpark.net/
This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM 1080i High Definition, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Reach us at wfi @ vsnl.com and admin@wildfilmsindia.com.
A sloth bear near the boundary of Panna National Park (Madhya Pradesh, India) running around in sarsoan (mustard / rapeseed) fields near a village! While Sloth Bears can be quite harmful, unpredictable and dangerous due to their poor eyesight and easy excitability, this fellow was quite oblivious to the presence of yours truly - the cameraman, and went about his job quite diligently - scooping up termites from an ant-hill, loping around and just having fun!
The sloth bear (Ursus ursinus = Melursus ursinus), also known as the labiated bear, is a nocturnal insectivorous species of bear found wild within 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 as 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. They feed on termites, honeybee colonies and fruits. Sloth bears sometimes attack humans that encroach on their territory. Historically, humans have drastically reduced their habitat and diminished their population by hunting them for food and products such as their baculum and claws. These bears have been used for as performing pets due to their tameable nature.
Sloth bears are expert hunters of termites, which they locate by smell. On arriving at an ant-hill, they scrape at the structure with their claws till they reach the large combs at the bottom of the galleries, and will disperse the dirt with violent puffs. The ants are then sucked up through the muzzle, producing a hoovering sound which can be heard 180 meters away. Their olfactory senses are strong enough to detect grubs three feet below ground. Unlike other bears, they do not congregate in feeding groups. They rarely prey on other mammals. Sloth bears may supplement their diet with fruit and plant matter: in March and April, they will eat the fallen petals of mowha trees and are partial to mangoes, sugar cane, the pods of the Golden Shower Tree and the fruit of the jack-tree. Sloth bears are extremely fond of honey. When feeding their cubs, sows are reported to regurgitate a mixture of half digested jack fruit, wood apples and pieces of honey comb. This sticky substance hardens into a dark yellow circular bread-like mass which is fed to the cubs. This "bear's bread" is considered a delicacy by some of India's natives.
According to Robert Armitage Sterndale, in his Mammalia of India: [The sloth bear] is also more inclined to attack man unprovoked than almost any other animal, and casualties inflicted by it are unfortunately very common, the victim being often terribly disfigured even if not killed, as the bear strikes at the head and face. Blanford was inclined to consider bears more dangerous than tigers...
One specimen, known as the Sloth bear of Mysore, was singlehandedly responsible for the deaths of 12 people and the mutilation of 2 dozen others before being shot by Kenneth Anderson. Although sloth bears have attacked humans, they rarely become man-eaters. Dunbar-Brander's Wild Animals of Central India mentions a case in which a sow with two cubs began a six week reign of terror in Chanda, a district of the Central Provinces, during which more than one of their victims had been eaten, while the sloth bear of Mysore partially ate at least three of its victims.
bhaloo bhalu bear mowgli jungle book reench reech baloo
Local names of a sloth bear in different languages -
Bengali: Bhalluk
Gond: Yerid, Yedjal and Asol
Hindi: Rinch, Bhalu and Adam-zad
Marathi: Aswal
Kol: Bana
Malayalam: Pani karudi
Oraon: Bir Mendi
Sanskrit: Riksha, Bhalluka
Source - Wikipedia
Panna National Park is situated in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, at a distance of around 57 km from Khajuraho. The region is also famous for its diamond industry. The park is known worldwide for its wild cats, including tigers as well as deer and antelope.
Source - http://www.pannanationalpark.net/
This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM 1080i High Definition, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Reach us at wfi @ vsnl.com and admin@wildfilmsindia.com.