If you're looking to bring a black teddy bear into your home, you will have to decide which version you want. Some black teddy bear's look like a teddy while others look like a black bear. While the teddy design were originally based on wild bears, they don't all look them - they look, instead, like teddy bears. To tell the difference you need only look at the face and body of the plush bear; teddy's are generally made in a sitting position with arms and legs that don't have 'claws' and many of them have smiling, pleasant faces; black bears, on the other hand have defined pads on their paws, 'claws', and are made so they can flop over and/or stand on all fours, just like a wild bear does. Their faces are also designed much like a real bear which means they have a long snout.
Many references to bears can be found in both modern and ancient literature, legends, folk songs, cartoons, children's stories, and mythology. They are the first type of animal most children learn to recognize. When looking at bear folklore it can be confusing to a child given much of it is based on caricatures - teddy bears and Smoky the bear on one hand and magazine cover pictures of ferocious, real bears, on the other. Traditionally, bears have been portrayed as villains so as to support the notion of man against nature, and bears in general have not been distinguished from one species to the next - the black bear from the grizzly bear, for instance. The fact is, the two species are quite different.
Black bears can be found living in most forested areas of North America, which includes all Canadian provinces except Prince Edward Island (they were all wiped out in 1937), 40 of the United States, and many portions of northern Mexico. From nose to tail, black bears are 4 to 7 feet long and 2 to 3 feet in height at the shoulder. They have small eyes, rounded ears, a long snout, light grey skin, and a short tail. Depending on the season, their fur is shaggy or sleek. On average, black bears are smaller than grizzly bears with a smaller shoulder hump and a facial shape that is less curved. They have smaller claws than the grizzly, which they use for climbing trees. Their fur is also less shaggy than that of the grizzly. The black bear has ears which are longer and smoother than a grizzly bears and they have a furred instep at the rear which the grizzly does not. More than any other North American mammal, black bears come in a variety of colors; in eastern populations they are usually black but in western populations they are brown, cinnamon, black and sometimes blond.
If it's a true black teddy bear you're looking for, like with wild black bears and grizzlies, be sure to distinguish which it is you want [from the black plush bears] - you can in fact tell the difference between the two.
Copyright Shelley Vassall, 2010.
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