Diet

The Sun bears are omnivores. Like other bear species, their molar teeth are not sharp enough for eating flesh and therefore they do not include much meat into their diet. Hence, their diet mainly consists of a wide variety of fruits , nuts, and berries that are found in the rainforests. When fruits are scarce, they also supplement their diet with a variety of insects and small rodents. Being known as the Honey Bear, they love to include honey into their diet as well.

They tend to use their long tongues to extract honey in the hives and the insects in hollow logs and they use their long and strong claws to tear logs as well to get the insects. But if it is not possible for the bear to break the tree trunks, the Sun bear would place one of their paws into the hole and wait for the insects to crawl onto their paws lick the insects off. The Sun bear tend to have mostly fruits in their diet during periodic mass fruiting events, allowing them to store up fat and energy reserves to prepare for the long period of low fruit availability after the mass fruit events.

Unlike other bears, the Sun bear do not store food to prepare for hibernation as they do not hibernate.

Here’s a video of a Sun bear using it’s long tongue to lick peanut butter off a huge jar