Exit, Chased By a Bear Trivia Quiz

Answer: Giant panda

The World Wildlife Fund changed its name to the World Wide Fund for Nature in 1986 but retained the giant panda as its emblem and logo. The giant panda has very few natural enemies in the wild but has suffered significantly from human encroachment into their territories. They are reliant on bamboo as their main food source (they need a lot of it - around 20 to 30lbs a day) and bamboo forests have been severely hit by deforestation and infrastructure developments.

It is difficult for giant panda populations to recover from these losses as the females don't start breeding until somewhere between four and eight years of age and will then go on to have only about one cub every two years. In captivity the situation is even worse as breeding programmes have been relatively unsuccessful and most zoos have had to resort to artificial insemination to achieve any panda pregnancies at all.

Giant pandas make look cute and cuddly but they are actually ferocious creatures and could quite conceivably chase and kill humans. However, Shakespeare's play 'The Winter's Tale' is set in the kingdoms of Sicilia and Bohemia, while giant pandas are native to China. It therefore seems unlikely that the stage direction "Exit, pursued by a giant panda" (or "Exit, chased by a giant panda") would ever have been considered.

Answer: Spectacled bear

Unsurprisingly the spectacled bear can be found in the Andes Mountains, in the north-western part of South America. The distinctive face markings are unique to each bear and therefore provide means of identifying and tracking specific individuals. On most bears the markings take the form of rings around the eyes, hence the name 'spectacled'.

It is not just the markings that make spectacled bears distinctive. They are also the only surviving members of the Tremarctinae subfamily of short-faced bears, which means they have relatively flat, round faces with a short snout.

Unless Shakespeare's Antigonus had sailed a very long way from his home in southern Europe, it seems extremely unlikely that he met his death while being chased by a spectacled bear.

Answer: Honey bear

Sun (or honey) bears are found across south-east Asia, including parts of India, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. They have generally dark fur except for a paler face and snout and a crescent shaped mark on their upper chest. Their diet primarily consists of small insects (including bees) along with honey and honeycomb.

The name 'honey bear' is misleading as it is also often given to the kinkajou - a completely unrelated creature similar to a raccoon. Incidentally, a sugar bear is another name for the sugar glider (an Australian marsupial) and marmalade was the favoured food of Paddington Bear.

The sun bear is relatively small bear, although they can be fierce when surprised or provoked. Given that sun bears aren't as physically imposing as, for example, a grizzly bear, it seems unlikely that this was the type of bear that chased Antigonus to his death.

Answer: Sloth bear

The sloth bear is native to the Indian subcontinent and can be found in a range of countries including India, Nepal and Bangladesh. A subspecies is also found in Sri Lanka. The bears are extremely good at tree-climbing and are often found hanging upside down - which might, along with their long shaggy fur, explain why they were initially mistaken for sloths by early naturalists.

Sloth bears are not as slow as their name implies! They are in fact known for attacking humans that encroach on their territory. Still, as the name doesn't imply any great risk to human life, Shakespeare would probably have picked a different type of bear to appear in 'The Winter's Tale'.

Corals, tortoises and slugs are all slow animals (corals in particular as they don't move at all) but they don't tend to hang around in trees...

Answer: Asian black bear

Asian black bears are generally herbivorous and spend a lot of time hanging out in trees. They build nest like structures in the trees to rest on and to sit on while eating. They have also been known to hibernate in hollowed out tree trunks some way above the ground.

Other than the large white markings on its chest, the best way to identify an Asian black bear is the size and shape of its ears because they are relatively large and tend to make the bear look like it is wearing a set of Mickey Mouse ears...

Asian black bears are quite dangerous to humans and would therefore have been an ideal candidate for Shakespeare to have used in 'The Winter's Tale' if it wasn't for the problem that they live a long way from southern Europe. However, you can't really blame them for not liking humans very much when one of the significant dangers to their population is poaching - their gallbladders being particularly prized for traditional Asian medicines.

Answer: Denmark

Polar bears are not found anywhere in mainland Denmark, but they are commonly seen in Greenland, which is officially part of that country. Similarly, the only Norwegian territory where polar bears are found in the wild is the Svalbard Islands (located in the Arctic Ocean about halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole) and the only US territory home to polar bears is Alaska. Once in a while a rogue (or lost) polar bear might turn up in another country such as Iceland, but these occurrences are quite rare.

These five nations with polar bear populations all signed a treaty in 1973 (known as the Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears) to protect polar bears from hunting, prohibit their export or import and work to conserve their habitats.

In Shakespeare's 'The Winter's Tale', Antigonus is chased by a bear in "the deserts of Bohemia" - which doesn't sound very much like the Arctic, especially as a shepherd and a clown wander into the area shortly afterwards. The polar bear is therefore probably innocent in this case.

Answer: Kodiak bear

The Kodiak Islands are located in the Gulf of Alaska, about 400km (250 miles) south of Anchorage and much of the land is part of the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. It has magnificent scenery including rivers and forests which provide an ideal habitat for over 2,000 Kodiak bears.

The Kodiak bear is considered to be a subspecies of brown bear and also goes by the name Kodiak brown bear or Alaskan grizzly bear. They are omnivorous, eating lots of different types of vegetation when their favourite dinner - salmon - isn't available.

This bear would be a good suspect for the killing of Antigonus in 'The Winter's Tale' as people are regularly injured by these bears on the Kodiak Islands. However, it would have had to have been a long way from home to attack Antigonus so the circumstantial evidence probably doesn't stack up.

Kodak, Nikon, Polaroid and Konica are (or were) all camera manufacturers - sadly they aren't bears (although I love the idea of a 'polaroid bear' lurking around).

Answer: Silvery bluish-grey

Ursus americanus emmonsii, otherwise known as the glacier bear or blue bear, has a distinctive coat of silvery bluish-grey fur. Apart from its fur colour, it is very similar to other species of American black bears, being a medium sized forest-dwelling bear that is generally omnivorous. It is native to south-east Alaska, an area which includes the Glacier Bay National Park.

The glacier bear's blue colouration is believed to be increasingly rare due to interbreeding with other subspecies of American black bear that have more dominant genetics for fur colour.

In 'The Winter's Tale' Antigonus is supposed to have been chased by a bear on the shores of Bohemia. However, Bohemia is a landlocked region of Europe located in the modern day Czech Republic. Despite this confusion over the location it still seems unlikely that the play would have been set in Alaska with the glacier bear being the one that "tore out his [Antigonus's] shoulder-bone" and was not yet "half dined on the gentleman".

Answer: Cinnamon bear

Cinnamon is the only spice which has given its name to a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. The cinnamon bear is found in the wild in the north-west US and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. Although described as a subspecies (with the Latin name Ursus americanus cinnamomom), there are few differences between the cinnamon bear and other American black bear species, except the fur colour.

The term 'Old Time Radio' refers to the period of the 20th century when radio was the main form of entertainment (basically the pre-TV era of the 1920s to 1960s). 'The Cinnamon Bear' featured a stuffed toy bear, named Paddy O'Cinnamon, who took two children to the mysterious Maybeland to search for the missing star from their Christmas tree.

Such a cute character from a children's story clearly can't be the same bear that was responsible for the death of Antigonus in Shakespeare's 'The Winter's Tale' - we can therefore safely cross the cinnamon bear off the list of suspects.

Answer: Eurasian brown bear

The Eurasian brown bear is primarily found in Russia and Scandinavia, but there are also large populations in the eastern European nations of Romania, Slovenia and Croatia, as well as isolated groups in France, Spain and Italy. It is a subspecies of the brown bear (Ursus arctos), although its fur colour can vary from quite pale to almost black.

The cave bear was found across Europe but became extinct approximately 27,000 years ago. The Kermode bear (or spirit bear) is a subspecies of American black bear with a white coat. The Gobi bear is a rare species of brown bear found in the Gobi desert.

The Eurasian brown bear's territory is certainly close to that of the locations seen in Shakespeare's 'The Winter's Tale' and the bears were probably even more widespread when the play was written around 400 years ago. Although attacks on humans are rare, it seems probable that we have finally located the creature that forced Antigonus to cry "This is the chase: I am gone forever!".