Some bears learn how to release cable-suspended food, break tree limbs, and open locked cars. Learning plays a large role in a cub's ability to obtain food. Its relatively slow development and long tie with its mother allow it to observe the mother's skills and to remember sites and experiences. Even the mostly herbivorous spectacled bear must learn when and where to find the most nutritious parts of plants in each season. Feeding generalists such as the omnivorous black and brown bears survive by remembering from year to year where and when to return to salmon runs, rich patches of ripe berries, and other concentrated foods important for energy reserves for hibernation.
Bears appear to sense and avoid each other at a distance.
Within a home range, trees may be clawed, bitten, and rubbed to serve as communicating signposts. Although little firm data exist on the function of marking behavior in bears, smelling such sites could provide other bears with information about the range's occupant. Evolution Fossilized remains of a considerable number of bears and bearlike animals have been found that date from the Miocene epoch. Apparently the bears evolved from an extinct group of carnivores known as the cynodonts. The best-known extinct bear is the cave bear, found in cave deposits throughout Eurasia and North America.