January 22, 2023

What color is a polar bear really?

It would seem that the answer follows from the very name of the animal. But it's not that simple!

Polar bear fur is not just a warm fur coat. This is an amazing invention of nature, created in order to collect and accumulate heat. In fact, the fur of the polar bear skin is hollow inside and... transparent! This allows the sun's rays to freely reach the bear's skin, which is also not white or even pink, but black. And it is known to attract heat. In addition, the hollow structure of the hairs creates additional thermal insulation and allows you to better maintain body temperature. Another animal that boasts such a coat is the polar bear's neighbor, the reindeer. Another useful property of air-filled hairs is that they help the bear swim. Animals can swim 100 km from the shore and even sleep on the water. In this situation, it is not so much the sun that helps them to warm up, as a layer of subcutaneous fat, which can reach 10 cm in thickness.
With such abilities to collect and preserve heat, polar bears can easily withstand Arctic temperatures up to -80 ° C. They even have to walk slowly, because running, they risk overheating. It is not surprising that the life of polar bears is closely connected with the ice. The melting of polar glaciers threatens the existence of the species due to a reduction in habitat and a decrease in the number of other polar animals that serve as food for bears. According to scientists, now only 20-25 thousand individuals have been preserved in the world, and their number continues to decline.
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But back to our question. It turns out that the polar bear is not white at all, but black with transparent fur! In summer, his fur gets a yellowish tint due to the constant exposure to ultraviolet light. But this is not the most exotic coloring that bears can acquire. However, this happens mainly when kept in zoos. So, the fur of a bear living in the Singapore Zoo turned green because of microscopic algae that settled in it. The bear was washed with hydrogen peroxide. And in the zoo of the Argentine city of Mendoza, a polar bear after taking medication for dermatitis turned ... purple! Veterinarians explained this by an allergic reaction and promised that the bear would turn white again within a month. The beast itself did not react to the change of image in any way. Apparently, they forgot to install a mirror in the aviary :)

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