Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Carnivora > Ursidae > Ursus > Ursus maritimus

Ursus maritimus (Polar Bear)

Synonyms:
Language: French

Wikipedia Abstract

The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a carnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is a large bear, approximately the same size as the omnivorous Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi). A boar (adult male) weighs around 350–700 kg (772–1,543 lb), while a sow (adult female) is about half that size. Although it is the sister species of the brown bear, it has evolved to occupy a narrower ecological niche, with many body characteristics adapted for cold temperatures, for moving across snow, ice, and open water, and for hunting seals, which make up most of its diet. Although most polar bears are born on land, they spend most of their time on the sea ice. Their scientific name means
View Wikipedia Record: Ursus maritimus

Infraspecies

Endangered Species

Status: Vulnerable
View IUCN Record: Ursus maritimus

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
6
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
50
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 12.22
EDGE Score: 3.97

Attributes

Gestation [3]  7 months 20 days
Hibernates [1]  Yes
Litter Size [3]  2
Litters / Year [3]  0.4
Maximum Longevity [3]  44 years
Snout to Vent Length [5]  7.38 feet (225 cm)
Water Biome [1]  Coastal
Weaning [3]  10 months 3 days
Adult Weight [2]  854.296 lbs (387.50 kg)
Birth Weight [3]  1.466 lbs (665 g)
Female Weight [2]  496.043 lbs (225.00 kg)
Male Weight [2]  1,212.549 lbs (550.00 kg)
Weight Dimorphism [2]  144.4 %
Diet [4]  Carnivore (Vertebrates), Piscivore
Diet - Endothermic [4]  90 %
Diet - Fish [4]  10 %
Forages - Ground [4]  100 %
Female Maturity [3]  4 years 9 months
Male Maturity [3]  4 years 9 months

Protected Areas

Emblem of

Greenland

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing SpeciesCommon Prey Count
Odobenus rosmarus (Walrus)2
Orcinus orca (Killer Whale)4
Somniosus microcephalus (gray shark)2
Vulpes lagopus (Arctic Fox)1

Predators

Homo sapiens (man)[6]
Somniosus microcephalus (gray shark)[6]
Ursus maritimus (Polar Bear)[6]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Ancylostoma caninum[10]
Trichinella nativa[10]
Trichinella spiralis (pork worm)[10]

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Webcams

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San Diego Zoo's Polar Bear Cam
Cam Time:
Hours: - ( - )

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
2Ursus maritimus, Douglas P. DeMaster and Ian Stirling, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 145, pp. –7 (1981)
3de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
4Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
5Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
7Diet composition of polar bears in Svalbard and the western Barents Sea, Andrew E. Derocher, Øystein Wiig, Magnus Andersen, Polar Biol (2002) 25: 448–452
8Alaska Wildlife Notebook Series, Alaska Department of Fish and Game
9Alopex lagopus, Alexandra M. Audet, C. Brian Robbins, and Serge Larivière, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 713, pp. 1–10 (2002)
10Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0