Polar bear

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This article is about the animal. For other uses, see Polar bear (disambiguation).
Polar bear

Conservation status

Vulnerable (IUCN 3.1)
[1]

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Ursidae
Genus: Ursus
Species: U. maritimus
Binomial name
Ursus maritimus
Phipps, 1774
[2]


Polar bear range
Synonyms
Ursus eogroenlandicus
Ursus groenlandicus
Ursus jenaensis
Ursus labradorensis
Ursus marinus
Ursus polaris
Ursus spitzbergensis
Ursus ungavensis
Thalarctos maritimus
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a carnivorous bear whose native range lies largely
within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and
surrounding land masses. It is a large bear, approximately the same size as
the omnivorous Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi).
[3]
A boar (adult male) weighs
around 350700 kg (7701,540 lb),
[4]
while a sow (adult female) is about half that size.
Although it is the sister species of the brown bear,
[5]
it has evolved to occupy a
narrower ecological niche, with many body characteristics adapted for cold temperatures,
for moving across snow, ice, and open water, and for hunting the seals which make up
most of its diet.
[6]
Although most polar bears are born on land, they spend most of their time
at sea. Their scientific name means "maritime bear", and derives from this fact. Polar bears
hunt their preferred food of seals from the edge of sea ice, often living off fat reserves when
no sea ice is present.
The polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species, with eight of the nineteen polar bear
subpopulations in decline.
[7]
For decades, large scale hunting raised international concern
for the future of the species but populations rebounded after controls and quotas began to
take effect.
[citation needed]
For thousands of years, the polar bear has been a key figure in the
material, spiritual, and cultural life of Arctic indigenous peoples, and polar bears remain
important in their cultures.
Contents
[hide]
1 Naming and etymology
2 Taxonomy and evolution
3 Population and distribution
4 Habitat
5 Biology and behavior
o 5.1 Physical characteristics
o 5.2 Hunting and diet
o 5.3 Behavior
o 5.4 Reproduction and lifecycle
5.4.1 Maternity denning and early life
5.4.2 Later life
5.4.3 Life expectancy
o 5.5 Ecological role
o 5.6 Long distance swimmer
6 Hunting
o 6.1 Indigenous people
o 6.2 History of commercial harvest
o 6.3 Contemporary regulations
6.3.1 Russia
6.3.2 Greenland
6.3.3 Canada
6.3.4 United States
7 Conservation status, efforts and controversies
o 7.1 Climate change
o 7.2 Pollution
o 7.3 Oil and gas development
o 7.4 Predictions
o 7.5 Controversy over species protection
o 7.6 U.S. endangered species legislation
o 7.7 Canadian endangered species legislation
8 In culture
o 8.1 Indigenous folklore
o 8.2 Symbols and mascots
o 8.3 Fiction
9 See also
10 Notes
11 References
12 External links
Naming and etymology
Constantine John Phipps was the first to describe the polar bear as a distinct species in
1774.
[1]
He chose the scientific name Ursus maritimus, the Latin for 'maritime bear',
[8]
due to
the animal's native habitat. The Inuit refer to the animal
as nanook
[9]
(transliterated as nanuq in the Inupiat language).
[10]
The Yupik also refer to the
bear as nanuuk in Siberian Yupik.
[11]
The bear is umka in the Chukchi language. n
Russian, it is usually called e

nu repee

pu (blyj medvdj, the white bear), though an

older word still in use is ouky

(Oshkj, which comes from the Komi oski, "bear").

[12]
In
French, the polar bear is referred to as ours blanc ("white bear") or ours polaire ("polar
bear").
[13]
In the Norwegian-administered Svalbard archipelago, the polar bear is referred to
as Isbjrn ("ice bear").
The polar bear was previously considered to be in its own genus, Thalarctos.
[14]
However,
evidence of hybrids between polar bears and brown bears, and of the recent evolutionary
divergence of the two species, does not support the establishment of this separate genus,
and the accepted scientific name is now therefore Ursus maritimus, as Phipps originally
proposed.
[1]

Taxonomy and evolution


Polar bears have evolved unique features for Arctic life. Large furry feet and short, sharp, stocky
claws giving it good traction on ice areevolutionary adaptations to this environment.
The bear family, Ursidae, is believed to have split off from other carnivorans about 38
million years ago. The Ursinae subfamily originated approximately 4.2 million years ago.
The oldest known polar bear fossil is a 130,000 to 110,000-year-old jaw bone, found
on Prince Charles Foreland in 2004.
[15]
Fossils show that between ten to twenty thousand
years ago, the polar bear's molar teeth changed significantly from those of the brown bear.
Polar bears are thought to have diverged from a population of brown bears that became
isolated during a period of glaciation in the Pleistocene.
[16]

The evidence from DNA analysis is more complex. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the
polar bear diverged from the brown bear, Ursus arctos, roughly 150,000 years
ago.
[15]
Further, some clades of brown bear, as assessed by their mtDNA, are more closely
related to polar bears than to other brown bears,
[17]
meaning that the polar bear would not
be a true species according to some species concepts.
[18]
The mtDNA of Irish brown bears
is particularly close to polar bears.
[19]
A comparison of the nuclear genome of polar bears
with that of brown bears revealed a different pattern, the two forming genetically distinct
clades that diverged approximately 603,000 years ago,
[20]
although the latest research is
based on analysis of the complete genomes (rather than just the mitochondria or partial
nuclear genomes) of polar, brown and black bears, and establishes the divergence of polar
and brown bears at 4-5 million years ago.
[21]

However, the two species have mated intermittently for all that time, most likely coming into
contact with each other during warming periods, when polar bears were driven onto land
and brown bears migrated northward. Most brown bears have about 2 percent genetic
material from polar bears, but one population residing in the Alexander Archipelago has
between 5 percent and 10 percent polar bear genes, indicating more frequent and recent
mating.
[22]
Polar bears can breed with brown bears to produce fertile grizzlypolar bear
hybrids,
[16][23]
rather than indicating that they have only recently diverged, the new evidence
suggests more frequent mating has continued over a longer period of time, and thus the
two bears remain genetically similar.
[22]
However, because neither species can survive long
in the other's ecological niche, and because they have different morphology, metabolism,
social and feeding behaviors, and other phenotypic characteristics, the two bears are
generally classified as separate species.
[24]

When the polar bear was originally documented, two subspecies were identified: Ursus
maritimus maritimus by Constantine J. Phipps in 1774, and Ursus maritimus
marinus by Peter Simon Pallas in 1776.
[25]
This distinction has since been invalidated. One
fossil subspecies has been identified. Ursus maritimus tyrannus descended from Ursus
arctos became extinct during the Pleistocene. U.m. tyrannus was significantly larger
than the living subspecies.
[16]

Population and distribution


Polar bears investigate the submarine USS Honolulu 450 kilometres (280 mi) from the North Pole.
The polar bear is found in the Arctic Circle and adjacent land masses as far south
as Newfoundland Island. Due to the absence of human development in its remote habitat, it
retains more of its original range than any other extant carnivore.
[26]
While they are rare
north of 88, there is evidence that they range all the way across the Arctic, and as far
south as James Bay in Canada. Their southernmost range is near the boundary between
the subarctic and humid continental climate zones. They can occasionally drift widely with
the sea ice, and there have been anecdotal sightings as far south as Berlevg on the
Norwegian mainland and the Kuril Islands in the Sea of Okhotsk. It is difficult to estimate a
global population of polar bears as much of the range has been poorly studied; however,
biologists use a working estimate of about 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears worldwide.
[1][27]

There are 19 generally recognized, discrete subpopulations.
[27][28]
The subpopulations
display seasonal fidelity to particular areas, but DNA studies show that they are not
reproductively isolated.
[29]
The thirteen North American subpopulations range from
the Beaufort Sea south to Hudson Bay and east to Baffin Bay in western Greenland and
account for about 70% of the global population. The Eurasian population is broken up into
the eastern Greenland, Barents Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, and Chukchi
Sea subpopulations, though there is considerable uncertainty about the structure of these
populations due to limited mark and recapture data.


Polar bears play-fighting
The range includes the