SURPRISING FACTS ABOUT POLAR BEARS

Polar bears are classified as marine mammals. Because they spend most of their lives on the sea ice of the Arctic Ocean, depending on the ocean for their food and habitat, polar bears are the only bear species to be considered marine mammals. A polar bear's skin is actually black. Beneath all that thick fur, polar bears have jet black skin. The polar bear's fur is also translucent, and only appears white because it reflects visible light. They can swim constantly for days at a time. As well as reaching speeds of up to 6 mph in the water, polar bears can swim for long distances and steadily for many hours to get from one piece of ice to another. Their large paws are specially adapted for swimming, which they'll use to paddle through the water while holding their hind legs flat like a rudder. Less than 2% of polar bear hunts are successful. Although about half of a polar bear's life is spent hunting for food, their hunts are rarely successful. A polar bear's main prey consists of ringed seals and bearded seals, which they hunt in a variety of ways. Either by breaking into puppying dens, waiting at breathing holes or at the water's edge, or stalking seals that have hauled out to rest on the ice. Besides catching seals, polar bears will also scavenge carcasses or settle for small mammals, birds, eggs and vegetation. Scientists can extract polar bear DNA from just their footprints. An innovative new technique developed by WWF and DNA specialist firm Spigen allows scientists to isolate DNA from a polar bear's footprint in the snow. Two tiny scoops of snow from a polar bear track revealed not just the DNA of the polar bear that made it, but even from a seal it had recently eaten. Grizzly polar bear hybrids exist. As recently as 2006 genetic testing confirmed the existence of polar bear-grizzly bear hybrids, also known as grolar bear or pisley bear. The hybrid bear physically resembles an intermediate between the two species, but as wild hybrids are usually birthed from polar bear mothers, they are raised and behave like polar bears. The ability for polar bears and grizzly bears to interbreed is unsurprising when you consider that polar bears evolved from brown bears as recently as 150,000 years ago. There are as many as 19 subpopulations of polar bear. The total population of approximately 26,000 wild polar bears are divided into 19 units or subpopulations. Of these just one subpopulation is increasing, five are stable and four are in decline. The remaining nine have not been assessed as they are data deficient, we simply don't have enough information about them to know how they're doing. Male polar bears can weigh as much as 10 men. Male polar bears can weigh up to 800 kilograms and are twice the size of females. Polar bears can also grow up to 3 meters long, making them the largest bear species and the largest land carnivore in the world. They can smell their prey up to a kilometer away. Polar bears have a very strong sense of smell, which they use to find seal breathing holes in the ice. Once it has found the hole, the bear will wait patiently until the seal comes up for air to attack. They can even detect a seal in the water beneath a meter of compacted snow. They face more threats than climate change. While climate change remains the greatest threat to the polar bear's survival, that is not all that the predator is up against. The oil and gas industry is turning its eyes to the Arctic, and with it comes the potential risks of habitat destruction from oil exploration work. Contact with oil spills can reduce the insulating effect of a bear's fur Polar bears can also be exposed to toxic chemicals such as pesticides through their prey, which can affect a bear's biological functioning and ability to reproduce. Melting sea ice from climate change has increased human-polar bear conflicts when hungry polar bears go searching for food in the summer. Fortunately, people are learning to adapt to the polar bear's presence and take preventative measures to reduce the risk of conflict. Many studies have been done to identify the consequences of the global warming and most of them show that polar bears will become extinct in the next 20 to 50 years. People are trying to do everything possible to keep the polar bears alive. However, eventually, the humanity itself will make it impossible. Right now, scientists are looking for ways to decrease the global warming effects. And if you learn something on this video, don't forget to hit that like button and share with your friends and don't forget to subscribe for more update.