Bear suspected of being human in a costume spotted waving to tourists at Chinese zoo

A bear suspected of a being a human in a bear costume was videotaped appearing to wave at tourists just a day after other video circulated online questioning the nature of the creature.

Video taken at the Hangzhou Zoo in eastern China had people wondering if the sun bear, pictured standing and looking at zoo patrons, was actually a person in costume.

The Malayan sun bear stood up on its hind legs at the Chinese zoo in Zhejiang and appeared almost as if it were a person wearing poorly fitted pants as part of a costume.

Chinese news outlet Yicai Global posted a video of allegedly the same bear, describing Angela as a 4-year-old sun bear, as she is seen waving to tourists.

"This is a real bear, not a human dressed in costumes! A four-year-old Malayan sun bear named Angela in a Hangzhou zoo went viral on China's social media as a video showed the world's smallest bear standing upright and waving to tourists just like a human," the outlet wrote on Twitter.

The Hangzhou Zoo had previously taken to its social media to defend the bear, writing posts from the animal's perspective: “Some people think I stand like a human, and it seems that you don’t understand me that much,” they wrote. “Previously, some tourists thought that I was too tiny to be a bear. I have to emphasize again: I am a Malayan sun bear! Not a black bear! Not a dog! A sun bear!”

Multiple experts have jumped to the bear's defense too, such as Ashleigh Marshall, an expert from Chester Zoo in England. She told the BBC that the animal “is definitely a real bear,” but added that sun bears do often “look a lot like people in their costumes.”

Wong Siew Te, a wildlife biologist and founder of the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre in Malaysia, told NBC News that it was "a sun bear for sure." He added that “sun bears could be very human-like. They stand like humans and walk like humans."

Despite some readers claiming that the bear's wrinkles looked a lot like pants with excess material, Marshall had an explanation for that also. The fold's in the bear's back are actually to help protect from predators, she said, as the loose skin allows the bear to “turn around” and fight back if attacked.

The human-bear conspiracy theory has increased visitor numbers at the zoo by 30% in just a day, according to the New York Post, citing Chao News.

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