A Bear’s Senses

Smell

A black bear’s sense of smell is thought to be the keenest in the animal kingdom, capable of smelling food sources from several miles away. While the large snout of a black bear is obvious from the external profile, the area inside a black bear’s nose, called the nasal mucosa, is 100 times greater than ours making their smelling capacity 2,100 times better than a human’s sense of smell. A bear’s olfactory bulb (the area of the brain that manages smell) is at least five times larger than ours, and their nasal cavity is structured like a honeycomb, providing greater surface area to accommodate millions of scent receptors.

Hearing

Hearing is another acute sense that black bears obtain and often serves as a first line of defense against danger. As a mammal, bears have the three middle ear bones that make them more sensitive to sound – the malleus, incus, and stapes. A bear’s ears, however, develop faster than the rest of their body, reaching full size at a young age, allowing them to utilize this sense very early on. Their hearing is twice as sensitive as a human’s and can pick up on a wide range of frequencies.

Eyesight

While a bear can see in color, research shows their eyesight up close is similar to a human’s, but long-distance eyesight is less than ideal, and they are unlikely to see details of objects from far away. The benefit of a bear’s eyes is that they can move freely without moving their head. Bears have rods and cones that interpret light and color, just as a human’s does, and while they tend to see blues on the color spectrum, it’s unlikely that they see reds well. Because a bear’s pupil can open wider than a human’s and they have 10 times as many rods as a human does, more light can enter in low-light or dark conditions, effectively doubling the amount of light available and improving their eyesight in low light.