The Sloth Bear
Lone Sri Lankan Sloth Bear (Melursus Ursus ursinus).
All the photographs on this page are of the same individual bear.
The Sloth Bear is a nocturnal animal and hard to see. It often looks like its had a hard night, Yala National Park, Southern Sri Lanka.
The Sloth Bear finds its food by following its nose. They will also eat carrion or even steal food from leopards.
The Sloth Bear feeds mainly on termites, ants and fruit. This one is digging around a decaying tree in Yala National Park, Southern Sri Lanka
The bear was about 100 metres away, which is why the photographs are grainy, even with a 400mm lens. In Yala National Park, like all other National Parks in Sri Lanka, vehicles must stay on established dirt roads. So we could not get any closer.
Having a good scratch.
Sloth Bears are so scruffy that, a bad hair day in Sri Lanka is called “wearing a bear cap“.
Although they look quite docile, Sloth Bears are dangerous as they have poor eyesight and may attack if they stumble on a human unexpectedly.
The Sloth Bear has large claws for ripping open termite mounds for food, as you can seein this picture.
Here it may have found some ants to eat.
The bear was blissfully unaware of the dozens of jeeps filled with tourists, watching it for about half an hour.
It kept its nose to the ground 90 per cent of the time.
And, eventually, wandered off back into the jungle.
Seemingly without a worry.
