🐾 Polar Bear

Polar Bear

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Who it is

• Scientific name: Ursus maritimus
• Family & relatives: A member of the bear family (Ursidae), most closely related to the brown bear.
• How to spot it: Recognize it by its huge size, thick creamy-white fur, long neck, small ears, and black nose and paw pads.

Its body & abilities

• Size: Adult males stand about 2.4 to 3 m (8 to 10 ft) long from nose to tail.
• Weight: Males weigh roughly 350 to 700 kg (770 to 1,540 lb); females are about half that size.
• Body & adaptations: Under its clear hollow hairs the skin is black to soak up heat, and a thick fat layer plus furry paw soles handle the cold ice.
• Top speed: It can run up to about 40 km/h (25 mph) on land and swim steadily at around 10 km/h (6 mph).
• Strength: One swipe of its massive paw can be strong enough to stun a seal, and it can swim for days across open water.
• Senses: Its sense of smell is extraordinary, able to detect a seal nearly a kilometer away or under a meter of snow.
• Growing up: One to three cubs are born tiny in a snow den in winter and stay with their mother for about two and a half years.

Where it lives

• Habitat: It lives on Arctic sea ice, coasts, and islands where it hunts seals.
• Where in the world: Found across the Arctic in Canada, Alaska, Russia, Greenland, and Norway.
• Territory: It ranges over vast areas of ice, sometimes hundreds of thousands of square kilometers, following the seasonal ice.

What it eats

• Diet: A meat-eater (carnivore) that relies mainly on seals and gets water from its food and by eating snow.
• Favorite foods: It mainly eats ringed and bearded seals, and will scavenge whale carcasses when available.
• How it hunts: It waits patiently by a seal's breathing hole in the ice, then grabs the seal when it surfaces.

How it behaves

• How it moves: It walks and lopes across ice and is a strong long-distance swimmer using its front paws to paddle.
• When it is active: Active mostly by day, hunting hardest in spring when seal pups are plentiful.
• Family life: Generally solitary; there is no herd name, though loose groups gather at food like a whale carcass.
• How it talks: It communicates with growls, chuffs, and body language, and uses scent to find mates.
• Babies: After mating in spring, delayed implantation means cubs are born the following winter in a snow den.

Its place in nature

• Role in nature: As the Arctic's top predator it keeps seal numbers in check; only humans and occasionally other polar bears threaten adults.
• Conservation: Listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, with climate change melting the sea ice it needs to hunt as the biggest threat.
• Dangers: Starvation from vanishing sea ice, cub deaths, and human conflict are leading causes of death.

Life & legacy

• How long it lives: Lives about 25 to 30 years in the wild.
• In our culture: A symbol of the Arctic and of climate change, the polar bear features in Inuit legends and worldwide conservation campaigns.
• Where to see it: See them near Churchill, Canada, the 'polar bear capital,' or in the Arctic reaches of Svalbard and Alaska.
• Fun fact: A polar bear's fur is not really white; each hair is see-through and hollow, scattering light to look white against the snow.