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The genetic similarities between polar bears and some brown bears were found to be the result of interbreeding. [23] [24] A 2012 study estimated the split between polar and brown bears as occurring around 600,000 years ago. [23] A 2022 study estimated the divergence as occurring even earlier at over one million years ago. [24]
It also found there was a healthy bear population in east Greenland where any bear was likely to have come from. The young bear, which weighed between 150 and 200 kilograms (300 to 400 pounds ...
The ulna is estimated to have been 48.5 cm (19 in) long when complete- for comparison, modern subadult polar bear ulnae are 36–43 cm (14–17 in) long. [1] The ulna was dated to the early Weichselian of the Late Pleistocene (~70kya). [2] Of the 16 specimens identified as Pleistocene polar bears, this is the only fossil ascribed to this ...
Norway. Polar bears were hunted heavily in Svalbard, Norway throughout the 19th century and to as recently as 1973, when the conservation treaty was signed. 900 bears a year were harvested in the 1920s and after World War II, there were as many as 400–500 harvested annually. Some regulations of hunting did exist.
The polar bear species is declining because of disappearing Arctic sea ice. In 2021, scientists in Norway found polar bears were inbreeding as the species fights to survive.
The protozoan Toxoplasma gondii has been found in polar bears, and the nematode Trichinella nativa can cause a serious infection and decline in older polar bears. [117] Bears in North America are sometimes infected by a Morbillivirus similar to the canine distemper virus. [118]
Rosenmüller, 1794. The cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) is a prehistoric species of bear that lived in Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene and became extinct about 24,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum. Both the word cave and the scientific name spelaeus are used because fossils of this species were mostly found in caves.
Moreover, the sub-population of Ursus maritimus polar bears found here is a genetically distinct set of polar bears associated with the Barents Sea region. [20] Ringed seal and bearded seal, prey of the polar bear, live in the waters near Bjørnøya, but the formerly common walruses have nowadays become guests.