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Devotees of online “cuteness overload” sites are probably familiar with Knut, the polar bear born in 2006 at the Berlin Zoological Garden. Little Knut was rejected by his mother and was subsequently hand-raised by zookeeper Thomas Dörflein, who slept on a mattress next to Knut’s crate at night in order to provide 24-hour care. Both Knut and his caretaker became reluctant celebrities and regularly greeted visitors at the zoo at set times each day.
As fluffy and adorable as baby Knut was, he was destined to grow up into a full-fledged adult polar bear, considered by biologists to be the most dangerous species of the bear kingdom. Adult Knut was just recently introduced to a three-year-old female on loan from the Munich Zoo. The humans involved hope that the pair will eventually have amour on their minds, and they’re encouraged by Gianna’s initial reaction: she smacked Knut on his snoot, a not uncommon practice among female polar bears and potential suitors. Just in case you’re unfamiliar with polar bear behavior in general, here are a few quick facts:
Polar bears know no boundaries when it comes to hunting for food. They travel from Alaska to Russia to Canada to Greenland, and even parts of Norway. They’re not really land animals, but they travel from place to place across the ice when the ocean freezes. Seal meat is the favorite food of polar bears, and they prefer to stay out at sea on giant ice floes where seals are plentiful. “Still hunting” is a polar bear’s preferred method of catching its favorite dinner, a ringed or bearded seal. The bear finds an air hole in the ice, lies next to it, and keeps very still. When a seal pops his head up for a breath of air, the bear grabs it and flips it onto the ice.
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Polar bears possess one of the most sensitive noses in the animal kingdom. Researchers believe that polar bears can smell a seal from up to 20 miles away, or even a seal den that’s been buried under three feet of snow. When they stand on their hind legs, they’re usually sniffing the air around them, trying to hone in on the closest food source.
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Underneath its fur, a polar bear’s skin is just as black as its nose. Scientists used to believe that the black skin of the polar bear helped it to absorb heat, but recent studies have shown that its fur actually absorbs most of the UV rays and transmits very little energy to the flesh. Polar bears actually have two layers of fur, which insulates the creatures so well that they tend to get overheated when running a long distance.
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Their fur is oily and water repellent. When polar bears climb out of the water after a swim, one or two good shakes dries them off almost completely.
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The wild polar bear population has diminished in recent years due to global warming and their overall loss of habitat, so breeding in captivity has been encouraged in order to perpetuate the species. As a result, scientists have learned a great deal about the mating patterns of polar bears. They’ve noted, for example, that polar bears don’t seem to mind “courting” in full view of visitors, but mama bears won’t carry a cub to term unless she has her own private, secluded den. Adult female polar bears usually give birth once every three years, and the cubs stay with their mothers until they are about two and a half years old. The mother bear nurses them for up to 30 months, even though the youngsters start sprouting very sharp teeth at only two months of age. The cubs look bald at birth, but they actually have a very fine layer of fur. They are, however, unable to see or hear when they’re first born.
Comments (29)
Comment
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The site is cute overload, not cuteness overload.
Yes, I am an addict.
posted by Jennifer on 10-6-2009 at 2:50 pm
The wild polar bear population has diminished in recent years due to global warming …
Really?
In 1950, there were 5,000 polar bears. There are 25,000 today.
posted by johnny on 10-6-2009 at 3:20 pm
“How do polar bears know their noses are black? Did they look in the water one day, see their reflection and say, man I’d be invisible if it wasn’t for that thing.”
posted by Ryan on 10-6-2009 at 3:20 pm
That bear is cute…but I am way to sceptical about “Global Warming”. There is plenty of evidence that the Earth is actually cooling.
posted by graham on 10-6-2009 at 3:26 pm
johnny — that’s because hunting of polar bears was severely restricted in that same time period, allowing them to rebound — though it is worth noting that records in the 1950s are based entirely on hearsay, and not on any sort of scientific survey of the population.
It’s not clear whether the population is declining now, globally, but there are valid concerns that the loss of sea ice will threaten them just as they’ve finally recovered from widespread hunting in the 19th and 20th Centuries. (And it is certainly true that there has been substantial loss of sea ice, perhaps returning the North Atlantic to the condition it was in when the Vikings were sailing all over it. Whether this is good or not is another question.)
posted by Calli Arcale on 10-6-2009 at 3:44 pm
Polar bear’s outer fur is, on an almost microscopic level, a hollow tube. The fur is clear, not white–it just looks white due to the sun’s white light. Or so I’ve read.
posted by carl on 10-6-2009 at 4:05 pm
I wouldn’t call the 1950’s recent.
posted by Bert on 10-6-2009 at 4:14 pm
I don’t believe in global warming either… though it should be noted, I do believe the Earth is flat and the sun revolves around it.
posted by SimonCabron on 10-6-2009 at 7:54 pm
@Bert – & I wouldn’t call a population that’s grown from 5k to 25K ‘diminishing’
@Calli Arcale – Bingo! Hunting restrictions have greatly improved things for the polar bear.
Do you think the polar bear should be put on the Endangered Species List? There’s a lot more polar bears than a lot of people think.
Wouldn’t less ice mean more food for the polar bear? It’d be easier to hunt seal, right? (Not that we’re anti-seal or anything…)
I just can’t stand the ‘global warming’-thing. Don’t believe it. I think the ‘Co2 threat’ is the biggest crock of crap the counter-culture has ever tried to get over on the voting consumer.
posted by johnny on 10-6-2009 at 9:03 pm
@johnny
QUIT listening to Rush Limbaugh as your polar bear expert. The “count” in 1950 is highly dubious, don’t take it for gospel just cuz Limbaugh does.
Second, CAN YOU EVEN READ? They hunt on the ice pack. If there’s less ice, then there’s less places to hunt. GET A CLUE. They can’t catch a seal in the water.
And global warming isn’t “counter culture” whatever that means. It’s mainstream. You’re in the minority on this one.
But by all means, keep burying your head in the sand. Unless you’ve actually gone up to the Arctic to count polar bears, I’d trust the experts on this one who say the population is down due to global warming.
And by the way, You actually can measure the Arctic ice pack via satellite, and it has shown marked declines in area, the prime habitat of polar bears.
You CANNOT POSSIBLY refute shrinkage of Arctic Ice. Do a little research and look up a satellite photo of the ice pack US Geologic Survey I believe has good time lapse showing the last decade.
posted by Jonny on 10-6-2009 at 9:51 pm
Politics and semantics aside, and notwithstanding the fact they’ll happily tear your face off as adults, baby polar bears are damned cute.
Even without Coca-Cola bottles in their paws.
posted by Sandy Wood on 10-6-2009 at 10:53 pm
and bi-polar bears are twace as dangerous.
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 10-7-2009 at 12:40 am
At the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, the polar bears often look like their fur is dyed green. I was told it was because algae grew inside their fur (hollow as noted by carl).
I was one of many who enjoyed the story of ‘Cute Knut’.
posted by Michele on 10-7-2009 at 9:00 am
Hey Johnny…have you even looked at any research other than what the EPA has to say about global warming, or is it “climate change” now.
Do the research and you’ll find that the Earth has been cooling for several years.
Don’t believe the lie that the Earth is warming, your precious satilites confirm it’s cooling.
By the way, how’s Air America going?
posted by graham on 10-7-2009 at 10:50 am
i read once that polar bears are always left paw dominant – but i don’t know if that was a true fact.
posted by jen on 10-7-2009 at 11:07 am
graham, you are an idiot. Climate change doesn’t manifest itself in time scales of just a few or several years. The trend over the past 200 years has been warming (indisputable fact) – and there will be short periods of cooling, just like there are purturbations in any trend, but this does not mean the overall trend is cooling.
posted by Yams on 10-7-2009 at 1:30 pm
So the Earth is experienceing a cooling trend…thanks for pointing that indisputable fact.
Let’s hurry and pass the Cap and Trade bill so that we can stop this once and for all…
posted by graham on 10-7-2009 at 5:19 pm
“The trend over the past 200 years has been warming (indisputable fact)”
Those 200 year old thermometers worked perfectly? Hmmm…
posted by cmfalls on 10-8-2009 at 12:06 am
@ cmfalls: Actually, the IPCC uses ice core samples for data instead of thermometers. They have found mostly increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the ice as well as increasingly warmer temperatures deduced from changes in ice structure. Also, the Mauna Loa Observatory has nice graphs of atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperatures since the 1950’s. If you do a quick search of the keywords in that last sentence, you should be able to find some.
And for all of the naysayers: Do you ever wonder why it’s so warm in greenhouses? It is because the glass traps solar radiation within the greenhouse. On Earth, atmospheric carbon dioxide acts just like that glass and traps more solar radiation (heat) within the atmosphere than can escape out. Therefore, the more carbon dioxide there is in the atmosphere, the warmer it gets here on Earth. There has been a marked increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide amounts since the Industrial Revolution popularized the (mass) burning of fossil fuels.
@ PartiallyDeflected: I lol’d :)
posted by glad_I_learned_something_in_university on 10-8-2009 at 2:09 am
Thanks for your respectful comments Glad I Learned…
I have a question/comment. If the Earth is warming, does it stand to reason that there will be more forests through out the world due to greater evaporation and rainfall?
Since plants thrive in conditions where CO2 levels are higher, shouldn’t that increase the number of them through out the world? If that is accurate, shouldn’t the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere dissapate to a healhy level?
I hear the arguments, nearly every day, for and against global warming. I never hear anyone speaking about the water cycle. We all learned about it in elementary school, rainfalls, it’s collected, it evaporates…Why wouldn’t this cycle be supported even more by an increase in temperature through out the planet, causing more evaporation and more deposition?
For a control, assume that illegal logging is completely banned through out the world.
Thanks.
posted by graham on 10-8-2009 at 9:29 am
Temp changes cause Co2 changes
posted by johnny on 10-8-2009 at 2:10 pm
We need more Co2 not less
http://j.mp/HUkTB
posted by johnny on 10-8-2009 at 2:31 pm
@graham, I think you’re supposition is overly simplistic.
I looked at the Carboniferous period and it had high Oxygen content as well. Remember plants breath O2 at night, and this could be a limiting factor on your proposed plant growth.
They may thrive on the CO2 in the day, but they will be limited by the amount of O2 in the air at night.
Also higher temps don’t necessarily bring more water. Look at desertification. A number of deserts are growing in area (the Sahara and Middle East), and are unlikely to receive more water w/ warmer temps.
Also, warmer temps affect weather patterns, which affects where the evaporated water falls. This leads to droughts and floods. Heard of any droughts lately? CA? That’s a warm place, near the ocean, why aren’t they seeing more rainfall? That’s a decade long drought. Recent floods in Turkey too.
And of course, your assumption to end illegal logging is fine for a classroom discussion, but doesn’t hold for the real world. The kinds of places that have forests to protect (S. America, SE Asia) are the exact kinds of places that lack the political will and power to prevent logging.
So if you’re gonna hold out for plants thriving on CO2, then you better put your money to saving the rain forest, cuz you sure as heck won’t get one w/out the other.
posted by Jonny on 10-8-2009 at 4:54 pm
also @ graham
I think you referred to me (snarkily) as a listener of Air America among other things in one of your earlier comments (I never listened to Air America or Rush Limbaugh, thank you).
Um, first of all, there are 2 Jonny/Johnnys in this debate, and we appear to be on opposite sides. You made your comment to Johnny, which would appear to be the wrong one. This may sound like nitpicking, but your INABILITY TO DISTINGUISH us CALLS INTO QUESTION the items you bring up as “facts”. If you cannot read a single name and reproduce it, well, what else have you made mistakes on?
Also, you seemed to take Yams’ comment as proof that the Earth is cooling, which is a complete misrepresentation of his/her comment, which said THE EXACT OPPOSITE, “this DOES NOT mean the OVERALL trend is cooling.”
In fact, this was her last statement, and yet, you still turned it around to support your side. A short period of cooling in an overall period warming would be known as an OUTLIER.
Now, I have bolded several words so that they will stand out more and you will not repeat your mistakes.
megadittoes
JONNY
posted by Jonny on 10-8-2009 at 5:18 pm
Dear Jonny,
It is crystal clear who my comments were aimed at Jonny, not johnny…
Jonny, you are a douche bag.
If anyone is still reading these posts they will know wxactly what I mean. Your tone is pathetically immature, you sound like someone defending their relegion.
Only your relegion is “climate change” and anything else that Obama, Pelosi, and Gore have crapped out and onto the world today.
I am confidant that you will completely ignore any rational response to any of your points becuase you have been convenced that man is causing “global warming”.
Do you honestly believe that there isn’t enough Oxygen in the air anymore?!?
Do you really believe that humans are causing global warming?
If so, what the hell are you doing about it?
Why are your heroes and the rest of the “climate changers” still flying around in private jets?
Megadittoes…maybe you ought to listen to Rush or better yeat, listen to Neal Boortz. Opinions aside, their facts are always accurate, they have to be, otherwise they’ll be out of a job.
Graham
p.s. Did you change you name from John to Jonny after seing Karate Kid?
posted by graham on 10-9-2009 at 10:02 am
That’s just it, it WASN’T crystal clear. Maybe it was to you in your confused world, but not to everyone else. That’s what happens when you say one thing and mean another.
And Rush Limbaugh doesn’t have to be accurate. He’s in the business of OPINIONS. Rush is notoriously INACCURATE. He’s claimed there is no link between cigarettes and cancer and other diseases, no proof that nicotine is addictive.
And he said (in his book, See, I Told You So) “There are more acres of forestland in America today than when Columbus discovered the continent in 1492.
Ok, 2 things wrong w/ that. Columbus didn’t discover the continent, he got to the island of Hispanola in 1492. And there aren’t more trees in America than there were in 1492. Clear cut forests don’t tend to grow back.
But as long as Rush says it w/ conviction, and more importantly, as long as rubes believe every word he says, then Rush is in the clear.
Also, perhaps you’ve heard of a treeline, where trees and most plants stop growing. From the Wikipedia:
“There are also man-made pollution tree lines in weather exposed areas, where new tree lines have developed because of the increased stress of pollution. ”
So you see, if you reduce the amount of oxygen (as a percentage of the atmosphere, because say, CO2 is increasing and becoming a greater percentage), then it may not be good for plants, as you claimed.
I am not sure of the exact chemistry of say, burning wood, but if you have carbon in the wood, and you need oxygen for a fire, and the resulting smoke contains CO2, then you can see that the amount of free oxygen in the atmosphere is being reduced and that oxygen is combining w/ the Carbon to become CO2. So it is possible for the level of pure oxygen, as percentage of the atmosphere, to be reduced, w/out reducing existant oxygen per say.
My tone, while somewhat condescending and sarcastic, was my attempt to avoid the ad hominem attacks that seem to be the only ammunition you have in this discussion. This is after all, Mental Floss, and I’m trying to engage your intellect w/ reasoned arguments that you seem hellbent on ignoring.
Do you really believe humans AREN’T causing global warming?
Wow, it IS really easy to win an argument that way, just ignore science, and most of world opinion and you’re never wrong. As I said before, most people agree global warming is real.
posted by Jonny on 10-10-2009 at 12:00 am
Of course, there are people that deny the Holocaust, and that Jesus walked the Earth, and I already mentioned that Rush believe cigarettes are TOTALLY SAFE.
You can always find someone to disagree w/ fact. And now I’ve found you, my bestest buddy.
Megadittoes
posted by Jonny on 10-10-2009 at 12:05 am
One more thing about Rush’s accuracy, to prove to you that he can be INACCURATE and still retain his job.
At the 2009 CPAC, your dear leader, Rush, was awared the “Defender of the Constitution” award. Rush proceeded during his speech to quote from “the Preamble of the Constitution” (you know, that document that someone had just made him “Defender” of).
He said “We are endowed by our creator, with certain inalienable rights. That among these rights are Life, Liberty (Freedom), and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Now, tell me where the job-ending inaccuracy is.
If you guessed that Rush inserted the word “Freedom”, because Rush doesn’t like the word “Liberty”, it’s too much like Liberal, so he had to change it, YOU’RE RIGHT! I suppose he refers to the green statue in NY Harbor as the Statue of Freedom just to avoid giving liberals a good name.
This is how petty and manipulative your dear leader Rush is, that he won’t use the word Liberty as it’s written in one of our founding documents. Some American.
Of course, if that’s all you saw, you’re still sadly wrong. Rush wasn’t quoting the Preamble of the Constitution as he claimed. That’s the Declaration of Independence.
Rush, the Great Defender of the Constitution, COULDN’T EVEN ACCURATELY QUOTE THE CONSTITUTION, IN A PREPARED SPEECH. Now, where was his fact checker? Why hasn’t he lost his job over this mistake? Why haven’t they at the very LEAST REVOKED HIS AWARD over his FAILURE TO DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION, or the Declaration as it was written for that matter.
But Rush is always accurate, according to you, or he would have lost his job by now.
posted by Jonny on 10-10-2009 at 12:34 am
Jonny,
You are petty…
You accuse me of disagreeing with fact, yet my entire argument with you has been based in fact, the earth is cooling not warming.
Let me go ahead a clarify my position…man is not causing “globabl warming”. As you say the earth will warm and cool, however we don’t need to worry about our lives being threatened by and such “trend”.
Let me fist address your comment about Rush. Have you read the transcript of his speach to CPAC? I don’t need to defend Rush, he does that himself every day, I will say though, he did inaccurately quoted the Preamble to the Constitution. Big deal, were his words implications any less true? And as best as I can tell, it seemed that his speach was off the top of his head, not prepared and fact checked…he repeatedly said he wasn’t using a teleprompter. Certainly given the opportunity to correct himself, he would, and probably has.
If you think that little error totally debunks Rush’s accuracy, then I suppose the 9 HUGE errors in an “Inconvenient Truth” certianly debunks “climate change” and your hero Al Gore, who by the way is still flying everywhere he goes…what a hypocrite!
Your comment about forrest in the United States is also false. I work in the paper industry, I know that there are more trees in the United States today than there were when this country was founded.
Burning wood…was that a joke?
Why don’t you just go ahead and admit that “climate change” is BS and so are the defenders of it?
Seriously, if Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, and the 200+ losers who voted for Cap and Trade bill in the House of Reps. really believe that CO2 is causing “global warming”, then why in the hell are they still flying in their private jets?!? The answer may shock you…THEY DON’T REALLY BELIEVE IN WHAT THEY ARE SAYING!!!
You say I’m hellbent on ignoring your “reasoned arguments”…like this one?..”Graham, you are an idiot. Climate change doesn’t manifest itself in time scales of just a few or several years. ” Jonny
Very “reasonable” comment Jonny…In fact none of your comments have been reasonable, or engageing…which is why I maintatin the fact that you are a douche bag.
Yes, I don’t for a second believe that humans are causing global warming. I don’t believe that there is sufficient data to support that and neither do the 31,000+ scientists/signers of the Globabl Warming Petition Project (Google it). Why must you keep ignoring science?
So this is mental floss and we are supposed to look at all sides and have a reasonable debate, so why dont you then try looking the other way some time. I believed in “global warming” and “climate change” myself, about four years ago, but then I listened to several other points of view and realized that the data just doesn’t support it. Maybe you should take the time to do so as well.
Graham
P.S. You never answered whether or not you believe humans are causing “climate change” and just what you are doing about that.
posted by graham on 10-14-2009 at 4:32 pm