Photo of the Day #135: Sloth Bear

I had nearly forgotten about this photograph of a sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), but it's one of my favorites. Don't let their name or insect-based diet fool you, though; they can move quite quickly and are can be very dangerous to encounter. This is not because they are especially aggressive, but rather because they usually cannot see or hear humans until they are nearly on top of the bear, at which point the bear may attack in defense. Such facts don't mean much if you stumble into a sloth bear on a dark night, though, and according to at least one study there were as many as 735 sloth bear incidents within a five-year period.