Is a polar bear’s fur transparent?

    Yes! Most sources indicate that the long, coarse guard hairs, which protect the plush thick undercoat, are hollow and transparent. The thinner hairs of the undercoat are not hollow, but they, like the guard hairs, are colorless.

The hair of a polar bear looks white because the air spaces in each hair scatter light of all colors. The color white becomes visible to our eyes when an object reflects back all of the visible wavelengths of light, rather than absorbing some of the wavelengths.

At one time it was suggested that the polar bear hairs might have some of the properties of optical fibers. Apparently this is not the case.

Scientists in the late 1970’s discovered another interesting tidbit about polar bears. A number of polar bears in zoos from around the world were turning green! These scientists discovered that the algae responsible for making the bears green were not on the SURFACE of the hairs, as originally supposed, but were INSIDE the hairs (Lewin & Robinson, 1979). The algae more than likely came from the pond waters in the bears’ enclosures.

Related Web Sites

IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group - The official website for the Polar Bear Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. This site provides information on population status, conservation, and news, as well as a polar bear library where you can search for literature about polar bears <http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/references/> Polar Bears International - Polar Bear International is a non-profit group dedicated to the conservation of the polar bear. Web site includes bear facts, photographs, information and research. Polar Bears: National Wildlife Federation - This Web site from the National Wildlife Federation contains the following categories: polar bear facts, behaviors, magazine articles, polar bear conservation, and activities for kids and parents. What has been happening to polar bears in recent decades? From NOAA Arctic Theme pages. In addition to discussing the ecology of polar bears, this Web site provides a gallery of polar bear photographs and links for more information about polar bears and climate change. United States Fish and Wildlife Service: Polar Bear Page - This site provides news, facts, maps and multimedia related to the polar bear. USGS Alaska Science Center - The USGS Alaska Science Center conducts research on polar bears primarily from the Southern Beaufort Sea population. Information on their research is presented on its Website. What is the largest bear on earth? - Everyday Mysteries: Fun Science Facts from the Library of Congress.

Further Reading

Brown, Gary. The great bear almanac. New York, Lyons & Burford, 1993. 325 p. Bruemmer, Fred. How polar bears break the ice. Natural history, v. 93, December 1984: 38-47 Davids, R.C. Lords of the arctic: a journey among the polar bears. New York, MacMillan, 1982. 140 p. Lewin, Ralph A., and Phillip T. Robinson. The greening of polar bears. Nature, v. 278, March 29, 1979: 445-447. Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. Polar bears. Minneapolis, Carolrhoda Books, c2000. 48 p. (Juvenile literature)

For more print resources...
Search on "polar bears" and "bears" in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.

Photo: NASA's Ocean Surface Topology from Space, from the NASA Website.

From the Arctic Theme Page at National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery/
polarbear.html

Photo from the NOAA Website.
http://www. noaa.gov/features/ monitoring
_1008/arcticice.html

Cub being tagged for observation. NOAA Photo Library. http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/historic/c&gs
/theb3717.html

A mother and her young. From the U.S. Fish
& Wildlife Service. Credit: Scott Schliebe. http://www.fws.gov/home/feature/2006/
polarbearphotos.html

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