New reseach into why glaciar bears have white fur

[FfFfFfFF 58,136]

Tania Lewis is one of the world’s experts on glacier bears, but even she has only seen these mysterious animals a handful of times. As a wildlife biologist at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska, Lewis studies the park’s little-seen population of what are genetically black bears, but whose coats range from mostly black with a silvery fringe to entirely bluish gray.

“To have a rare color … that’s not found anywhere on Earth—there’s a story there,” Lewis says.

In their latest research, Lewis and colleagues have offered new clues into why these bears are so unusual.

The team identified 10 black bear populations in and around the national park, four of which contained glacier bears. The glacier bears were separated from each other by wide fjords, glacier-capped mountains, and barren ice fields. 

In the course of 12 years, the researchers collected hundreds of black bear hair and tissue samples—some of the latter from hunted bears—across an area of 42,000 square miles in and around the national park. They took note of the bear’s color and where it was found. Then they analyzed the DNA and used statistical methods to figure out the bears’ relation to each other, which identified the 10 isolated populations.

No one knows for sure why glacier bears are so limited geographically, or why the gene for this silvery blue color has persisted in these populations. The discovery that glacier bears tend to live in glacial areas, however, suggests they might survive at higher rates in ice-covered areas, Lewis says. 

Source

[GagaSine 7,464]

Wow these bears are so incredibly beautiful  this is so fascinating!