Sloth bears are the world's deadliest bear. As their habitat shrinks, India's forest communities are finding ways to co-exist with them.

For the tiger, it must have felt like easy prey: a female sloth bear and her cub, walking away from a watering hole near a safari lodge in India. The tiger stalks the bear through dry scrub, preparing to attack. That's when things take a surprising turn.

Instead of freezing or trying to escape, the sloth bear whips around, and charges at the startled-looking tiger. The tiger rears and fights back, and a 45-minute-long battle ensues, with the two biting and clawing at each other. Watch the video below to see their ferocious fight.

Sloth bears (named due to their long claws and teeth, supposedly resembling a sloth) which live in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, are widely considered among the most aggressive animals on the Indian subcontinent. They are known to charge explosively at anyone they consider a threat – not just tigers, but also, humans. One study counting large carnivore attacks on humans around the world between 1950 and 2019 found that sloth bear attacks outnumbered all other species, including tigers, lions, wolves and any other bears. There had been 1,337 sloth bear attacks on humans during that period, compared to 1,047 by tigers, 414 by wolves, and only 23 by polar bears, for example. (Though tiger, lion and other big cat attacks on humans are deadlier – around 65% of them are fatal to humans, whereas around 8% of sloth bear attacks are lethal).

However, sloth bears are also facing many threats themselves, from habitat degradation to retaliation by humans. Their population is declining, and they have been classed as a vulnerable species, with their global population estimated at fewer than 20,000.

That's not only a problem for the bears themselves – sloth bears have important benefits as ecosystem engineers who disperse fruit seeds and control termite populations. But research suggests that insights into the sloth bears' behaviour, including how they react to perceived threats, could help keep both humans and sloth bears safer.

The ferocity of sloth bears may be surprising given that the bears feed on fruit, termites and ants, and don't prey on mammals. But sloth bears may in fact have evolved their explosive strategy to survive among carnivores such as tigers, according to a 2024 study. "Explosively charging and attacking a potential threat has served sloth bears well for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years," according to the study's authors. Their analysis of 43 encounters between sloth bears and tigers suggests that the scare tactics work: the clashes mostly ended with both sides backing off and the tiger running away largely unharmed.

In the fight near the safari lodge, the female sloth bear and the male tiger also turned out to be quite evenly matched opponents, according to the naturalist who observed them.

"Tigers are very powerful, but their stamina might not last. And sloth bears are extremely hairy, so the tiger did not get proper grip on the throat of the........

© BBC