Some weird medical condition is affecting the spectacled bears at a zoo in Leipzig. Check out the photos.
The bears are named Lolita, Bianca, and Dolores, and normally spectacled bears look more like this:
Spectacled bears are the last surviving member of a subfamily of bears called the Tremarctines. The most famous Tremarctine bear of all was the giant short-faced bear (Arctodus simus). That particular bear was the largest bear that ever existed, weighing as much as 2,500 pounds and standing over 5 feet at the shoulder. It had a broad range in North America from Alaska to Mexico.
Now, these poor bald bears in Germany are nowhere near as impressive as that animal.
But it is a mystery why these bears have gone bald. All are female, so their sex may have something to do with it.
It may also be a genetic condition. It could be their diet. But whatever it is, the bears are going to suffer in this winter.
Spectacled bears are vulnerable in their native range in South America, which is roughly the entire northern and central Andes. This is the only species of Tremarctine bear to survive into the modern era, and it is the only surviving South American bear.
But if one were seen in the wild, I wonder what some cryptozoologists would say.
I can only imagine.
There were a series of photographs of a supposed Bigfoot taken by a game camera in Elk County in Pa. a few years back. I think they made it onto CNN. They were possibly of just such a mangy bear (theirs apparently isn’t mange, but probably something along the same lines).
That’s exactly what I was thinking of when I first saw these bald bears.
I just read Dolores and Lolita died in March/May 2011 from this illness. It has never been seen in the wild, only in captive animals. To this day, they aren’t exactly sure what caused the hair loss but they wonder if it was stress. They also mentioned that this is a world-wide problem in zoos with those bears (there are more cases).