Their teeth are suitable for either tearing flesh or grinding vegetables. In fact, they differ from all other carnivores in the shape of their molars, which have broad, almost flat crowns. These teeth, along with the lengthened canine teeth and reduced or absent first three premolars, indicate the bears' omnivorous, or meat and vegetable, diet. The diet of bears generally is varied and flexible. Most species are especially fond of ants and honey.
Bears also eat bees, seeds, roots, nuts, berries, and insect larvae.
Their meat diet includes rodents, fishes, deer, pigs, and lambs. Grizzlies and Alaskan brown bears fish for salmon, and the polar bear feeds almost exclusively on seals. The largely herbivorous spectacled bear, on the other hand, rarely eats anything other than vegetation. Temperament Bears vary as much in character and habits as they do in size. Although a few kinds, such as grizzlies and polar bears, are fierce, most are mild and only become violent when their food supplies or young are threatened.