Featured Image Credit: Twitter
Topics: World News, China, Animals, Weird
Rhiannon Ingle
While many of us flock to zoos to check out the weirdest and most wonderful creatures that nature has to offer us - it seems a 'human bear' is the last thing we'd be expecting to see.
Well, for the Hangzhou Zoo in China, this was exactly the case as viral footage made its rounds on social media showing a bear comfortably standing up on its hind legs and seemingly waving to passers-by.
People were so adamant the bear in question was actually a human donning a bear-like disguise, the zoo itself has been forced to since come forward and outright deny such bizarre speculation. See for yourself:
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Rumours have been flying around all over the place about the zoo's sun bear, an endangered species that is commonly found in the rainforest of South East Asia, who has since been identified as Angela.
Great name that.
Now, it's not majorly uncommon for bears to stand up on their hind legs to get a better view of their surroundings but when videos and pictures emerged online of Angela observing the zoo's visitors for herself - the internet was sent into a full-on frenzy.
One Twitter user claimed: "No cuz that's literally a human."
A second sarcastically joked: "Definitely not human with costume..."
"Those are definitely human gestures," wrote a third while a fourth declared: "Its a dude inna suit..... not real. Bears cant stand up for that long. Definitely not in place like that."
Hangzhou Zoo has now responded to the claims that the sun bear was just actually just a human wearing a bear costume and said people 'don't understand' the species.
In a post written from the perspective of the critter, Hangzhou Zoo said: "Some people think I stand like a person... It seems you don't understand me very well."
"When it comes to bears, the first thing that comes to mind is a huge figure and astonishing power… But not all bears are behemoths and danger personified."
The zoo, through the bear's voice, went on to explain that sun bears are 'petite, the smallest bear in the world'.
The zoo's official website reads: "Our bears all belong to the Ursidae family, which is mainly divided into three subfamilies, namely the giant panda subfamily, the spectacled bear subfamily and the Ursidae subfamily.
"Our sun bears belong to the Ursidae, and our other brothers are brown bears, American black bears, polar bears, Asiatic black bears, and sloth bears.
"The body structure of our bear family is that we can stand on our hind legs, and so are the other brothers!"
Sun bears height and size 'are about the same as a big dog' with a general body length of '110-150 cm' and an average weight of '55 kg' according to the Zoo.
Well, that settles that then.
UNILAD has reached out to the Hangzhou Zoo for comment.