Apologies for that terrible, terrible title.

This is the latest in my occasional series of fascinating (yes, really!) facts series… It’s a long story, but I ended up reading about bears earlier today and stumbled upon some interesting facts. Be warned, I haven’t had the time to verify any of these facts, so treat them with the caution you would anything else on the internet.

• The bear ancestor is an offshoot of the ancient Canidae family of dogs, wolves, foxes, and coyotes.
• Bears are very smart and have been known to roll rocks into bear traps to set off the trap and eat the bait in safety.
• In 2004, a black bear was found unconscious in a campground in Seattle, Washington. It had broken into a cooler and used its claws and teeth to open dozens of beer cans. Although it sampled other types of beer, it chose to drink all the cans of only one type of beer. After its drinking binge, the bear passed out.
• A swimming polar bear can jump 8 ft. (2.4 m) out of the water.
• Polar bears have the largest home ranges of any bear. One polar bear can hunt and live in an area as big as Maine.
• Bears can run up to 40 miles per hour, fast enough to catch a running horse.
• Unlike many mammals, bears can see in color.
• Bears can see almost as well as humans, and they can hear a little better. But they can smell much better. In fact, a bear’s sense of smell is around 100 times greater than a human’s. Polar bears can track down an odor from 20 miles (32 km) away. They can smell a dead seal under 3 feet of solid ice.

And no, I have no plans to write about bears any time soon. Which of course means it’s almost certain my next book will involve them somehow…