Do Bears Have Fingers?

Fingers

• The short answer to this is no, bears do not have fingers. When looking at bear tracks, there will be five toe pad marks, which can make people think they have five fingers, like humans, but they are not fingers and toes as people would know them. Bears have five large claws attached to hands and feet, but these have no sensory applications and bears do not have any opposable thumbs.

Hand Setup

• The foot- and handprints of bears can look very similar to humans. The hind legs have an elongated heel pad with five toe prints and the front legs have a more elliptical pad with five toe prints. In front of the toe prints there will also be five marks where the bear's claws have dragged on the ground.

Use of Hands

• The rear feet of bears are used entirely for balance, but the front hands are used for a variety of tasks. Just by looking at the claws of a bear it is easy to guess what these tasks are. They are used for climbing, foraging and as a defense mechanism. Bears are not exclusively carnivorous and will climb trees to get the best vegetation. They will also dig up plants, insect nests and use their claws to grab fish out of the water. The only exception to this is the giant panda which uses its claws to rip apart bamboo canes. It was only during the 1990s that pandas were recognized as being part of the bear family instead of with raccoons or classified on their own.

Senses

• As bears do not have fingers in the way humans would recognize them, there can be confusion over a bear's sense of touch. Although the pads of its feet have nerve endings, it is its vastly superior sense of smell and hearing that allow the bear to survive in the wild.