--- title: "Spectacled Bear (Tremarctos ornatus) | AnimalTracks.wiki" description: "South America's only native bear, an Andean climber with pale rings around its eyes that builds platforms in the trees." image: "https://animaltracks.wiki/images/animals/spectacled-bear-1.webp" published: "2026-10-12" updated: "2026-10-12" --- # Spectacled Bear (*Tremarctos ornatus*) > **Status**: Checked against 5 sources, listed under Sources below. > **Tagline**: South America's only native bear, an Andean climber with pale rings around its eyes that builds platforms in the trees. > **Soundtrack Vibe**: Garage Blues & Swamp Rock // KT Tunstall, "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" > **Soundtrack Links**: [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/7nD5EVKZ4ZAcUUaJKynIMo) > **Vibe Match**: A spectacled bear builds stick platforms in the trees to reach food that sits high up. KT Tunstall builds this song the same way, stacking a stomp, a guitar slap and her own voice on a loop pedal, layer on layer, until it stands up on its own. ## Biological Superpowers & Stats - **Taxonomy**: *Tremarctos ornatus* - **Danger Level**: High - **Conservation Status**: Vulnerable ([IUCN Red List](https://doi.org/10.2305/iucn.uk.2017-3.rlts.t22066a45034047.en)) - **Superpower**: Builds platforms in trees for eating and sleeping - **Habitat**: A variety of Andean mountain habitats, from rainforest to thorny dry forest, from western Venezuela south to Bolivia - **Diet**: Fruit, bromeliads, berries, grasses and bulbs, plus small animals such as rodents, rabbits and birds - **Tags**: mammal, bear, omnivore, climber, mountains ## Natural History & Behavior ## Spectacles like fingerprints The spectacled bear, *Tremarctos ornatus*, has whitish or cream rings around its eyes. That pale color can extend down to the throat and chest, and each bear has its own set, a "fingerprint" of markings. The thick coat is usually black or brown, sometimes tinged with red. It is a medium-sized bear. It grows 1.5 to 1.8 meters (5 to 6 feet) long and stands 0.6 to 0.9 meters (2 to 3 feet) high at the shoulder. Males grow up to 30 percent larger than females and weigh up to 154 kilograms (340 pounds). Females rarely top 81 kilograms (180 pounds). ## A bear with a tree-top workshop This bear climbs trees as well as foraging on the ground, and it builds stick platforms to reach food that sits high up. Fruit and bromeliads are favorites, but the menu also takes in berries, grasses, bulbs, cactus flowers and small animals such as rodents, rabbits and birds. Near settlements, bears sometimes raid cornfields. It is the only bear native to South America. It lives in the Andes and outlying mountain ranges, from western Venezuela south to Bolivia. Many live between 1,829 and 2,682 meters (6,000 and 8,800 feet) above sea level, and others live lower. Their habitats run from rainforest to thorny dry forest. ## Cousin of the giants > **The last of its line** > The spectacled bear is the only living tremarctine, a subfamily of bears found only in the New World. Its extinct relatives include two of the largest land mammal carnivores that have ever lived, the giant short-faced bears, at 1,000 kilograms or more. DNA from a thigh bone found in a Chilean cave showed that the South American short-faced bears were more closely related to the spectacled bear than to the short-faced bears of North America. ## A long life with an open question In human care, the average age is around 20 years, and it is not uncommon for a bear to live into its late twenties or occasionally its early thirties. The maximum recorded in AnAge, a database of animal lifespans, is 39 years, for a wild-born bear that died in captivity. How long they live in the wild is unknown. The IUCN rates the species Vulnerable. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What threatens spectacled bears? Habitat destruction and hunting are the greatest threats. Poachers sell bear parts to traditional medicine dealers or eat the meat, and people kill bears where they raid cornfields and because they wrongly believe the bears kill livestock. Numbers fell sharply in recent decades in Venezuela, Colombia and Peru, but healthy populations remain in Ecuador and Bolivia. *(Source: [Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute]())* ### How does a spectacled bear time the birth of its cubs? Females experience delayed implantation of the embryo. This allows a female to give birth when food is plentiful, usually between November and February. If resources are short, the embryo does not implant. She has one or two cubs, which are practically bald, toothless and blind at birth, and which usually stay in the den until they are about 3 months old. *(Source: [Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute]())* ### Where does a spectacled bear sleep? By day it sleeps in secluded spots: tree cavities, tree platforms, gaps between large exposed tree roots and dens dug into cliff faces. *(Source: [Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute]())* ## Sources 1. [Andean bear. Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.]() 2. [Tremarctos ornatus (spectacled bear). AnAge: The Animal Ageing and Longevity Database, Human Ageing Genomic Resources.]() 3. [Vela-Vargas et al. (2021). Tremarctos ornatus(Carnivora: Ursidae). Mammalian Species.]() 4. [Mitchell et al. (2016). Ancient mitochondrial DNA reveals convergent evolution of giant short-faced bears (Tremarctinae) in North and South America. Biology Letters.]() 5. [Velez-Liendo & García-Rangel (2017). Tremarctos ornatus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2017: e.T22066A123792952.]() *Published October 12, 2026. 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