Tremarctos ornatus: Spectacled Bear as Real Life Paddington Bear

Summary: Spectacled Bear (Tremarctos ornatus), also known as Andean Bear, is a short-nosed bear native to the tropical Andes subregion of South America.

Spectacled Bear, Parque Nacional de Cutervo en Cajamarca, Peru: Luis Padilla, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Tremarctos ornatus is a New World bear native to South America. The only living representative of the bear subfamily of Tremarctinae is endemic (Ancient Greek: ἐν, en, “in” + δῆμος, dêmos, “people”), or unique, to the Tropical Andes.

The biodiversity-rich subregion of the Tropical Andes encompasses 2,100 miles (3,300 kilometers) of the continual Andes mountain range extending from north to south for about 4,300 miles (7,000 kilometers) along South America’s west coast.

Tremarctos ornatus claims main homelands from Venezuela southwestward through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Historical reports also indicate the omnivore’s presence in eastern Panama and in northwestern Argentina.

Tremarctos ornatus is known commonly in English as Andean Bear, Andean Short-Faced Bear or Spectacled Bear.

Paddington, the lovable, ursine (Latin: ursus, “bear”) character featured since 1958 in a series of children’s stories by English author Thomas Michael Bond (born Jan. 13, 1926), is an anthropomorphized (Ancient Greek ἄνθρωπος, ánthrōpos, “man, human being” +‎ μορφή, morphḗ, “form, shape”), or humanized, Spectacled Bear from darkest, deepest Peru.

The mid-size bear with a short snout, round ears and short neck typically has blackish fur that sometimes evinces brown or red hues.

The common name of Spectacled Bear derives from the pattern of tan or white facial markings that partially or fully ring their eyes and that often extends over cheeks, muzzle and throat, and down to the chest. Spectacle markings are unique to each individual bear but sometimes are absent altogether.

Spectacled Bears adapt to the wide range of coastal and inland habitats found throughout their Andean homelands. Their preference may be for cloud forests, but they also thrive in high altitude grasslands as well as in desert scrub.

Although classified as a carnivorous mammal, Spectacled Bears devote most of their omnivorous (Latin: omnis, “all” + vorare, “to devour”) diet to non-meat sources such as flowers, fruits, honey, moss, tree wood and vegetables.

Spectacled Bears are considered to be a vulnerable species because of increasing threats to their livelihood. Activities such as agriculture, mining and oil exploitation lead to habitat fragmentation and loss. Poaching occurs for such purposes as consumption of their meat, live capture for the pet trade, or usage of body parts for traditional medicine.

Reclusive and shy, Spectacled Bears have unique standing in the global bear family of Ursidae. They are the only living representative of the subfamily of short-faced bears, the Tremarctinae. Spectacled Bears also are the only extant, or surviving, species of bear native to South America.

Hopefully their current conservation status, which has been listed as vulnerable (VU) by the Fontainebleau, France-based International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) since 1973, will improve to least concern (LC) long before the close of the 21st century.

Otherwise, the Tremarctini tribe of short-faced bears may become extinct despite ancestry reaching back 13.6 million years (13.6 Mya) into Earth’s Miocene (Ancient Greek: μείων, meiōn, “less” + καινός, kainos, “new”) epoch.

Just as Paddington Bear was saved from taxidermic eternity, so Spectacled Bears may stage a comeback and thrive as a living species rather than as museum specimens.

Paddington Bear, Paddington Bear Trail, London, England, Nov. 9, 2014: Martin Pettitt, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Spectacled Bear, Parque Nacional de Cutervo en Cajamarca, Peru: Luis Padilla, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oso_andino_Porcon.jpg

Paddington Bear statue, Paddington Bear Trail, London, England, November 9, 2014: Martin Pettitt, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/mdpettitt/15228725194 Spectacled Bear, Parque Nacional de Cutervo en Cajamarca, Peru: Luis Padilla, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oso_andino_Cutervo.jpg

For further information:

García-Rangel, Shaenandhoa. “Andean bear Tremarctos ornatus natural history and conservation.” Mammal Review, vol. 42, no. 2 (2012): 85–119.
Available @ http://www.academia.edu/3271926/Andean_Bear_Natural_History_and_Conservation