My Science School

Sun bear is the smallest of all bears, inhabiting the rainforests of Southeast Asia. Its body is covered with short, but coarse fur that can be brown, black or grey. There is a U-shaped patch of white on the chest, which looks like the rising sun.

Its unique feature is its very long tongue (20-25cm long). This helps them extract honey from beehives and also earning it the nickname honey bear.

It does not hibernate but build nests of twigs and leaves in trees to sleep in. It eats insects, leaves, lizards, and berries. But its favourite snack is honey.

Sun bears don’t appear to have a defined breeding season and generally give birth to one cub. Cubs are born in dens or in hollow trees and are blind and helpless at first. At around 2 months, they are capable of moving about and weaning takes place at around 4 months. Parental care is important in the early life of cubs and they remain with their mothers for 2 years or more after birth.

With estimated population declines of over 30% over the past 30 years, sun bears are classed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Sun bears occupy just a fraction of their former range, having been extirpated from many areas it originally occupied.

Picture Credit : Google

Serval is a wild cat native to Africa. It has a yellowish to orange fur covered in black spots. Some of the spots blend together to give them the appearance of stripes. It has a long neck, big ears and long legs.

It is one of the best hunters in the wild cat kingdom.

Its success rate is 50%, while other cat species have only 10% success rate. It hunts both during the day and night. Its predators are leopards, hyenas and dogs. Humans kill them for fur. Cubs are blind at birth and weigh only 250 gram. They will open their eyes and double their size in two weeks.

Unfortunately, as with most carnivores, serval populations are at risk. They are not only suffering from loss of habitat, but they are also destroyed when suspected of killing domestic fowl. 

Servals are important small hunters that, unlike large carnivores, eat a wide variety of smaller prey, such as rodents and birds. Because the over-population of rodents poses such a direct threat to the environment and agricultural crops, servals and other small carnivores are extremely important to the balance of many ecosystems.

Picture Credit : Google