Tongue tied: The sun bear shows off its foot-long tongue at the St Louis Zoo in Missouri The sun bear may stand just four feet tall, but this bear's amazing tongue shows, it is big in other areas.
The odd-looking animal uses its impressive foot-long tongue to steal honey from beehives in tree trunks.
This bear, a resident at St Louis Zoo in Missouri, in the U.S., was snapped by wildlife photographer Vearl Brown.
The bored-looking bear also has very long claws to go with his very long tongueBrown, 74, said: 'This bear was up in the tree as usual and as I set up my tripod and aimed my camera at him he raised his head and yawned.
'Then, while he was yawning this very long tongue came falling out of his mouth.
'But I was lucky enough to be there and had the camera on him when he did.'
The sun bear, which is the smallest member of the bear family, has almost no non-human predators due to its sharp teeth, but is classed as vulnerable due to the killing of nuisance animals by farmers.
It is native to the rainforests of south east Asia.
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