For my science project, I had to pick an animal. The animal that I picked was Ursus Arctos. I went online and looked up Ursus Arctos. It showed a picture of a Brown Bear. I looked up its taxonomy. The Brown Bear’s Kingdom was Animalia, its Phylum was Chordata, its Class was Mammalia, its Order was Carnivora, its Family was Ursidae, its Genus was Ursus, and finally its Species was U. arctos.

 

I was happy, that I got the Brown Bear because I thought the Brown Bear is interesting. I also looked at some cool details about the Brown Bear, like the size of his claws, head, and body. His claw size is 15 cm, and its head and body size are 1.7 m to 2.8 m. What I liked the most though is the Brown Bear’s adaptions to its environment.

 

It said that the Cave Bear and the Brown Bear’s diets are similar, and the two species probably lived in the same area at the same time. Second, I found the Brown Bear’s habit and its range. The Brown Bear’s niche is that they are the largest land carnivores. The two things, I found out about the Brown Bear’s habitat and range, they do well in their habitat, and what parts of the world are they live in. The Brown Bear’s do well in their environment because of how big and strong they are, so nothing tries to challenge it.

 

Lastly, Brown Bears live in Alaska, Europe, Asia, South India, and finally Western Canada. I was amazed, because I thought there were just a few. The Brown Bear’s size of population is about 200,000 in the world. I read that they are greatly decreasing. I like Brown Bears, so I wanted to know why they are decreasing. The main cause of population declines among U. arctos is people hunt them and destroy their habitat.

 

I learned the diet and feeding habits of U. arctos. I read that Brown Bears were omnivores, so they lived on meat, berries, and honey. Whom do they compete with for food? Brown Bears only compete with other bears for food. I enjoyed doing this project, because I really like Brown Bears. I also wanted to learn about them. This project made me understand how U. arctos finds food, how they are classified and why they have greatly decreased. I was glad, that I picked the California Brown Bear.

 

Author: Jeremy H

Published: 05/2006

 

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Bear http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Ursus_arctos.html http://www.lioncrusher.com/animal.asp?animal=88

 

Photo Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/Ursus_arctos_syriacus.jpg/ 639px-Ursus_arctos_syriacus.jpg