Because of its photogenic appearance, the polar bear causes emotion in people who know it only from television programs about animals or from the brilliant animated film โUmkaโ. However, this predator is not at all harmless, and in terms of ferocity it goes "head to head" with its North American fellow grizzly.
The weight of a polar bear (male) reaches seven hundred and fifty kilograms and even more. According to some reports, there are bears weighing a ton. This is the largest land predator in the world. The female is less than one and a half to two times. The growth of the animal reaches almost three and a half meters. Due to the severity of the climate and the enormous weight, this king of the Arctic deserts is constantly forced to eat something. There are cases when a starving bear ate at one go food weighing up to 10 percent of its own weight, and in record time - in just half an hour!
The polar bear prefers to eat seals, this is his favorite food. But in the absence of these, it may well include hares, reindeers, lemmings, crabs, and even a person in its diet, if it is so careless that it is within the reach of an animal maddened by hunger.
But a polar bear prefers not to get involved with a person and attacks only if he faces starvation. Experienced polar explorers argue that getting rid of the culinary claims of the bear is easy. To do this, you just do not behave like food. That is, do not run away headlong when a white giant appears. Newsreel shots are known in which a feeble polar explorer, swinging a rail torn off a packing box, takes to flight a snow giant, more than twice its size.
The polar bear has a phenomenal instinct. For example, he is able to โsmellโ a seal as much as thirty-two kilometers. The bear is at the top of the food chain. This means that he has practically no natural enemies. And the enemy โunnaturalโ (that is, a person) is now more busy preserving the bear population, only occasionally catching individual individuals for zoos.
Now in the world there are, according to various estimates, from twenty to forty thousand individuals. Most of the white-white population lives in Northern Canada and Greenland. Under natural conditions, polar bears live up to twenty-two years.
The habitat of most of the bears is around large wormwood, where hunting for sea animals and fish is possible. But it is known that they can make long trips on drifting ice. In October, the she-bears prepare their lairs, where they will winter and care for their cubs. Interestingly, polar bears, like their brown counterparts, go into hibernation. True, not always and not all. Without fail
pregnant bears fall asleep, their hibernation lasts up to two and a half months. Before that, they walk up to two hundred kilograms of fat, which they will need for the normal development of the cub. Females that are free from offspring and males hibernate for a shorter period and not every winter.
Until 2012, it was believed that a polar bear as a species stood out about one hundred and fifty thousand years ago. Genetic research conducted by a group of scientists a year earlier spoke for this version. But additional advanced studies have clarified the age of the species. It turned out that the first white bears were separated from their brown ancestors about six hundred thousand years ago. Thus, the polar bear managed to quite safely survive several ice ages.