Bud forages for ants - 08-06-2007In this 59-second flashback https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWlCwXj_l1I, June and Bud are quickly raking through stones in an old railroad grade to lap up ant pupae as fast as they can. Ant larvae and pupae are a favorite food, maybe THE favorite. Bud whines softly as he competes with mom. As we often see, mom moves on, leaving the prime feeding to her cub. With this nice close-up video, it is easy to see that the bears are selecting the white pupae and ignoring the adult ants. Bud moved on when all that were left were adult ants.
June and cub eating - 08-06-2007The semi-permanent depressions left by this type of feeding is ‘bear sign’ we see all along the old railroad grade.
Foraging for ant pupae - 08-06-2007Black bears relish ant pupae wherever they find them with one exception—anthills. To a person, those would be the most obvious places to find ants, but bears find the colonies by smell and then select the pupae using their excellent close-up vision. Anthills, when disturbed, mix sand with the pupae, forcing bears to eat a lot of sand to get a few pupae. They have to be pretty hungry to do that. We see some anthills dug into, especially in poor food years, however in most years, bear ignore anthills or dig into them only briefly before moving on.
Thank you for your support in ordering so many calendars. We’re now down to the last 200 or so.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center