Polar Bear

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

The polar bear was given its common name by Thomas Pennant in A Synopsis of Quadrupeds (1771). It was known as the 'white bear' in Europe between the 13th and 18th centuries, as well as 'ice bear', 'sea bear' and 'Greenland bear'. The Norse referred to it as isbjørn 'ice bear' and hvitebjørn 'white bear'. The bear is called nanook by the Inuit. The Netsilik cultures additionally have different names for bears based on certain factors, such as sex and age: these include adult males (anguraq), single adult females (tattaq), gestating females (arnaluk), newborns (hagliaqtug), large adolescents (namiaq) and dormant bears (apitiliit). The scientific name Ursus maritimus is Latin for 'sea bear'. Carl Linnaeus classified the polar bear as a type of brown bear (Ursus arctos), labelling it as Ursus maritimus albus-major, arcticus in the 1758 edition of his work Systema Naturae. Constantine John Phipps formally described the polar bear as a distinct species, Ursus maritimus in 1774, following his 1773 voyage towards the North Pole.

In Their Own Story

The largest polar bear on record, reportedly weighing 1,002 kg (2,209 lb), was a male shot at Kotzebue Sound in northwestern Alaska in 1960. The oldest known fossil is a 130,000- to 110,000-year-old jaw bone, found on Prince Charles Foreland, Norway, in 2004. A 2012 study estimated the split between polar and brown bears as occurring around 600,000 years ago. A 2022 study estimated the divergence as occurring even earlier at over one million years ago. Glaciation events over hundreds of thousands of years led to both the origin of polar bears and their subsequent interactions and hybridizations with brown bears. Up to 9 percent of the genome of ABC bears was transferred from polar bears, while Irish bears had up to 21.5 percent polar bear origin. Mass hybridization between the two species appears to have stopped around 200,000 years ago.

Reader's Guide

Polar bears are usually solitary but can be found in groups when on land. During the breeding season, male bears guard females and defend them from rivals. Mothers give birth to cubs in maternity dens during the winter. Young stay with their mother for up to two and a half years. The polar bear is considered a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) with an estimated total population of 22,000 to 31,000 individuals. Its biggest threats are climate change, pollution and energy development. Climate change has caused a decline in sea ice, giving the polar bear less access to its favoured prey and increasing the risk of malnutrition, starvation, and eventually death. Less sea ice also means that the bears must spend more time on land, increasing conflicts with humans. Polar bears have been hunted, both by native and non-native peoples, for their coats, meat and other items.

Did You Know?

• The polar bear is the largest extant species of bear and land carnivore by body mass, with adult males weighing 300–800 kg (660–1,760 lb).
• The largest polar bear on record reportedly weighed 1,002 kg (2,209 lb) and was shot at Kotzebue Sound in northwestern Alaska in 1960.
• The oldest known polar bear fossil is a 130,000- to 110,000-year-old jaw bone found on Prince Charles Foreland, Norway, in 2004.
• The polar bear is called nanook by the Inuit, and the Netsilik cultures have different names for bears based on sex and age, such as angurag for adult males and tattaq for single adult females.
• Up to 9 percent of the genome of ABC Islands brown bears was transferred from polar bears, while Irish brown bears had up to 21.5 percent polar bear origin.