Yes, the viral sun bear is real. It's not a costume.

Footage of a carnivore successful China has awed the internet. Could that lasting bear, which looks similar idiosyncratic successful an ill-fitting costume, beryllium real?

Folks, the carnivore is real.

The viral carnal is simply a prima bear, Helarctos malayanus, that people lives successful the lukewarm tropical forests of Southeast Asia, though the taxon is recovered successful zoos astir the world, too. In a snippet of a video changeable astatine the Hangzhou Zoo successful China, one, with immoderate imagination, mightiness mistake the lasting carnivore for a costumed parkland worker tolerating extreme summertime heat wrong a carnivore grounds (which would beryllium an perfectly unspeakable summertime job). Rest assured, it's a bear, though the smallest carnivore successful the satellite astatine astir fractional the size of a achromatic bear.

"Let maine stress again: I americium a prima bear! Not a achromatic bear! Not a dog! It's a prima bear!" the Hangzhou Zoo posted connected the Chinese societal media relationship Weixin. (This posting, successful Chinese, was translated.)

Beyond the zoo's assertion that the carnivore is simply a bear, here's different evidence:

- Bears often basal up erstwhile they're funny astir something, oregon privation a amended view. "A carnivore whitethorn basal connected its hind legs to get a amended look oregon to prime up your scent if it cannot archer what you are," the U.S. Forest Service explains.

- Sun bears person a batch of escaped skin, which is particularly evident erstwhile they stand. The escaped tegument is simply a antiaircraft adaptation. "If a predator were to latch connected during a struggle, the prima carnivore tin crook successful its escaped tegument and wound its attacker," the San Diego Zoo writes.

- In the video, the carnivore crawls distant connected each 4 clawed paws, conscionable similar a bear.

If you're conscionable learning astir prima bears, congratulations! They are a fascinating carnivore taxon that people subsist connected sap, insects, and coconuts. They person a light, telltale crescent marking connected their chests, and transportation an impressively agelong tongue. "The prima bear’s particularly agelong lingua is perfectly suited for getting astatine chromatic and insects wrong trees and different choky places," the San Diego Zoo explains.

Like galore taxon today, prima bears are successful competition with radical for situation and resources. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, an enactment that assesses the colonisation and wellness of species, lists the prima carnivore arsenic "vulnerable."

Cover representation sourced from TODAYonline / Twitter.