Plenty of people know Polar Bears have black skin, but did you know they also have transparent fur? I didn’t! Here are some pretty cool (no pun intended) facts about polar bears with some background information too!
Polar bears are an animal almost everyone is familiar with; they’re large, white, iconic animals from the Arctic circle bought to the masses thanks to Coca-Cola ™. But with the slow melting of the polar caps in recent years, where does that leave our snowy white friends from the arctic? Well, at this rate, up shit (can I swear here? I think I can swear here.. I’m swearing here) creek without a paddle. You see, polar bears chill out (you smiled, don’t deny it) on sea ice platforms, using these platforms to hunt their main source of food – seals. As climate change impacts the Arctic Circle, the extent of sea ice platforms is diminished leading to less food and den access for polar bears, which reduces their body condition and lowers cub survival. So really these cute bears aren’t just adorable soft drink selling fluff butts, they’re pretty screwed, JUST. LIKE. EVERYTHING. ELSE. But the image of a starving polar bear is often a little more shocking, and might stir some action. But I digress.
So back to the cool fur stuff. So polar bears, like many arctic animals, have a double coat where the inner fur is dense and insulating and the outer fur is made up of longer guard hairs. Basically, the guard hairs are hollow, tapered, and contain a mixture of air and magical polar bear dust that scatters visible light. BUT not only does it scatter visible light, it is also kind of luminescent. This means that some of the light that hits the translucent hair gets trapped within the hair, and bounces around within the hollow core creating a soft luminescence further adding to the white appearance. The magical polar bear dust is actually, when viewed under the microscope, small bumps within the shaft of the hair that scatter light adding to the luminescent effect. Pretty cool hey!
Now, I didn’t just write this post to whine at you all again about why climate change is terrible and talk about cool as guard hairs on big white bears, I came to give you some COLD HARD fun facts about polar bears! So here’s 4 more.
1 – Polar bears are considered marine mammals, and they’re the only large marine mammal to have large, powerful limbs and feet to travel across land.
2 – An adult male polar bear can get as heavy at 700kg! That’s one big carnivorous bear, and actually makes them the largest bears.
3 – While polar bears are largely found in the Arctic circle, they have also been seen in Canada, Greenland, Norway, and Russia.
and
4 – Polar bears are thought to have evolved from a brown bear ancestor some 200,000 years ago, but in spite of this, they do not hibernate!
Bird is the Word 
