‘If Not Friend, Why Friend-Shaped?’ A Beary Scientific Investigation
Why are bears each cute and lethal? Scientific American investigates why these apex predators are “friend-shaped”
Shut up of playful European brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos) cubs within the woods of Finland.
There’s a meme about bears floating across the Web: “If not friend, why friend-shaped?”
That is an intriguing query in the event you determine to take it significantly. Most dangerous apex predators have a sure ferocity to them that doesn’t scream “friend”—suppose lions, wolves and crocodiles. So why do bears appear so cute and cuddly? Have we simply been conditioned by teddy bears and Paddington to seek out them secure and comforting, or is there one thing else occurring? It seems that evolution and human psychology would possibly assist us perceive their friend-shaped nature.
“I think that humans have this huge bias in terms of how we see bears,” says Rae Wynn-Grant, an ecologist and an affiliated researcher on the College of California, Santa Barbara, who has been learning bears for 14 years. Bears have featured prominently in folklore in lots of cultures all over the world, together with some Indigenous cultures in North America which have seen the animals as people’ kin. Now we have even seen bears within the sky and named constellations after them. “We have always found ourselves to be quite connected with different species of bears,” Wynn-Grant says. “We see ourselves in them.”
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This deep connection would possibly occur, partly, as a result of people and the eight recognized species of bears dwell in comparable environments. Individuals and bears can have quite a lot of habitats, however each typically thrive in forested areas close to our bodies of water, equivalent to rivers and lakes. In addition they have comparable dietary habits as omnivores. Fruits, nuts, honey and meat may make a pleasant dinner for a black bear or a human.
After which there’s the bodily resemblance—in the event you squint. “If a human were on all fours, they might resemble a bear. And if a bear was upright, it might resemble a person,” Wynn-Grant says. She’s not exaggerating: final summer season a video of a solar bear in a Chinese language zoo went viral due to how uncannily humanlike it seemed whereas standing on its hind legs. (Wynn-Grant fielded many calls from reporters asking her to substantiate that it was, certainly, a bear.)
Nonetheless, bears have developed to have loads of options that we do not, and at the least a couple of of them contribute to their total friend-shapedness. For one, they’ve fluffy fur, theoretically good for petting. In addition they have small, rounded ears, which they developed as an adaptation to preserve warmth. Larger, pointy ears would have extra floor space, which might end result within the sooner switch of warmth.
Two polar bears play combat within the snow, Arctic Nationwide Wildlife Refuge, Arctic, Alaska.
Patrick J. Endres/Getty Photographs
After which there may be bears’ huge, boopable nostril. “When it comes to their sense of smell, that is their superpower,” Wynn-Grant explains. “Polar bears can smell their prey under the sea ice from incredibly long distances. So it’s their sense of smell that really guides them and is a huge part of their ecology.”
Why do we discover these options pleasant? It could possibly be that we merely suppose bears appear like canines, which people domesticated over 1000’s of years explicitly to be our pals. Tens of tens of millions of years in the past, bears and canines had a standard ancestor, they usually nonetheless share some bodily traits. Throughout the order Carnivora, the 2 are each a part of the suborder Caniformia, which refers to “doglike” carnivores. Different caniforms embody racoons, seals, purple pandas and otters—that are fairly friend-shaped animals.
A few of bears’ options—particularly their chubby, rounded face—may additionally remind us of our personal infants. Within the Forties ethologist Konrad Lorenz proposed a so-called child schema to clarify why infants of many species have comparable options which can be distinct from these of adults: huge eyes, a spherical face and plump cheeks. These types of bodily traits would possibly set off a nurturing response in people, a response that helps our offspring survive. Analysis reveals that such traits evoke constructive feelings and social connections that may be measured by taking a look at modifications in mind exercise and ranges of oxytocin, an vital bonding hormone.
Bears are usually very spherical, plump creatures. So they could look like friend-shaped as a result of we’ve related these options with harmlessness and social bonding. However the truth that they appear like our infants doesn’t imply these associations are appropriate.
“Understand that I am like a bear lover, through and through. [But] I personally don’t think that bears look that cuddly. I don’t think that they look like friends. When I see bears, I see predators,” Wynn-Grant says. For her work, “I sedate them and handle their bodies and do checkups, and I look at their claws and their fangs and stuff. So I’m kind of like, ‘Oh, these are vicious animals.’”
The ethical of the story: bears could also be friend-shaped, however being an excellent good friend to bears doesn’t imply taming them or minimizing their wildness. “I think that all wild animals should remain wild and not domesticated, not held in captivity, unless it’s for strict conservation reasons,” Wynn-Grant says. “Feeling like, ‘Oh, bears are just hanging out with us; they’re ours,’ that actually can move science backward in a direction we don’t want.”
