The Cambodian Sun Bear Cub Is The Worlds Smallest Bear | Extraordinary Animals | Our World

from the warm springs of florida we're heading 10 000 miles away to cambodia where there could be a new brain box on the block this is a sun bear cub the sun bear is native to southeast asia and is the world's smallest bear but remarkably it has a bigger brain relative to its body size than any land carnivore these little guys don't hibernate like their us cousins they're always on the go [Music] over the past 18 years the free the bear sanctuary in southern cambodia has rescued almost 200 bears from the illegal wildlife trade experts here believe that the sun bear needs to be smarter than the average bear to survive in the asian rainforest we're going to put that theory to the test and see how bright they really are sanctuary director nev brodis is taking biologist patrick ie to meet the bears [Music] and help test their intelligence [Music] one the one thing that i immediately notice about the slumber is that magical looking golden bib that's where he gets his name the sun bear from it looks like the sun when he stands up he absolutely adores honey is that something that he'd eat naturally in the wild yeah this is a once in a blue moon opportunity to come across a nice big bees nest full of honey a 25 centimeter long tongue and massive claws for climbing are a few of the adaptations a sun bear has to help it find food in the rainforest but above all they need to be very resourceful and researchers believe this is why they are so good at solving problems [Music] to see how smart these bears really are we're going to set them three classic intelligence tests [Music] first up simple problem solving put some honey in that right nev fills a tube of tough bamboo with honey it's too far down for a sun bear to reach with its tongue and is hidden by vegetation let me just chuck that in there ronnie if ronnie can work out first where the honey is and then how to get to it she'll show that she can think ahead to imagine the outcome of her actions it's a mental process that so far has only been seen in apes and some birds she should be able to smell the honey in there right that's right [Music] she'll leave her greens to last probably pull those out honey's what she's after yep too deep for a ton literally one bite rani is cracked the first problem-solving test [Music] she worked out that the smell of honey came from inside the bamboo and that by using her jaws and claws she could break it open and reach her tasty prize but do sun bears have the brains to match their brawn [Music] the second intelligence test centers on something called object permanence which is the ability to understand that an object still exists even though it can't be seen [Music] for this test there are three buckets and a banana reward five-year-old fortnum is facing this challenge fortnum has to watch under which bucket the banana is hidden then go and retrieve it it might sound pretty simple but scientists have shown that it's only the cleverest animals that will consistently identify the correct bucket [Music] once they lose sight of it most animals would behave as if the banana no longer existed so that he can't simply sniff out his reward how he comes all the buckets have been scented with banana looks like he's going directly to bucket number one [Music] ding ding you think that he's actually remembering where it is yeah sure because he's not sniffing each of the buckets he clocked which one had the bananas and it went straight to it fortnum gets it right time after time bingo [Music] he's done it we don't have this ability until we're over a year old and experts believe that the skill has developed in sun bears because of the challenges they face in the forest i think it's got a lot to do with the environment their territory is very large but they have to remember where fruiting trees are they have to remember the seasons that the trees will fruit they have to remember where water sources are so it does require a level of intelligence that perhaps you wouldn't find in a different landscape the final and most demanding test is one that only the most intelligent animals including great apes and dogs can pass and to make it really difficult this one's for little alfie who at just 12 months old is a long way from being a fully developed sunbear more tasty banana is put into one end of a tube the catch is there's a sheet of perspex dividing the tube in half creating an invisible barrier between alfie and the treat coming in from the right alfie must work out that to get to the banana he can't access it from this side and must go round to the other side to reach the reward at this point most animals would continue to reach uselessly for the fruit before giving up entirely [Music] boy perfect look at that getting his head well in there god [Music] got it it's taken this clever one-year-old just a few minutes to solve a puzzle that baffles nearly every other species that's tried it [Music] so it seems that the sun bear is not just smarter than the average bear it's also one of the brainiest animals on the planet [Music]

Channel: Our World

Views: 130,554

Keywords: wildlife, wildlife documentary, natural history, earth, environment, documentary, documentaries, animals, nature, animal documentary, full documentary, nature documentary, planet earth, our world, wild animals, global warming, climate change, natural habitats, our planet

Id: sbSzm9jRY50

Length: 7min 27sec (447 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 29 2022