iPhone-Apps: great white shark / sharks / seabirds Science - Fiji Shark Project Scientific shark articles Alaska & Wildlife Alaska birds Brown bear Bush plane Goosander Grizzly Kodiak bear Moose Salmon Trumpeter swan Wolf Arctis Beluga Whale Flowers Pack ice Egypt - Land of the Nile Great Pyramids of Giza Relief Sinai Great Sphinx of Giza Fauna & Flora Fiji Mangroven Fiji Rainforest Red Ginger Shell Ginger Crested Iguana Fiji sharkproject Harbour Construction Alexandria Harbour, Egypt Conakry Harbour, Guinea San Pedro Harbour, Ivory Coast Shueiba Harbour, Kuwait Karachi Harbour, Pakistan Dammam Harbour, Saudi Arabia Richardsbay Harbour, South Africa Nature Flowers & Plants Landscapes Moods Storms Sunset Waterfalls other Canary Christmas time Frankfurt am Main Kapstadt Winter moods Penguins & seals African penguin Fur Seal Monk seal Polar bear Sea Seabirds African black oystercatcher Bank cormorant Black-browed albatross Blackfooted albatross Brown bobby Brown noody Cape cannet Cape cormorant Great frigatebird Hartlaub's gull Kelb gull Laysan albatross Masked booby Red-footed booby Red-tailed tropicbird Sooty tern Subantarctic skua Swift tern White chinned petrel White tern Wilson's storm petrel Sharks Blacktip reef shark Blacktip shark Breaching Great White shark Bull shark Caribbean reef shark Shark Finning Gray reef shark Great White shark Great White Shark - Baby Great White Shark - Fins Great White shark-trip Great White shark - Underwater Lemon shark Great White Shark - Touching Silvertip shark Tawny nurse shark Tiger shark Whitetip reef shark Southern Right Whale Underwater Blue bottle Bluespotted ribbontail stingray corals Diver Dwarf spotted Grouper Fishes & rays Giant grouper Greasy grouper Green sea turtle Hump-head wrasse Jewel grouper Moon grouper Shells Sponges & Reef inhabitants Wrecks Wildlife South Africa Birds Buffalo Cheetah Elephant Hippopotamus King Cheetah Lion Ostrich other animals Pied buck plants Rhino Wild dog Yellow Cape Cobra

(00090070) Description: Eisbaer/Polar Bear/Ursus maritimus Resting Polar Bears at the Hudson Bay coast The Polar Bear with the scientific name Ursus maritimus lives in all Arctic coast regions The Inuit call it “Nanook“ and say that it has supernatural powers. It is a big, muscular bear with a weight of 300 to 600 kilograms and a total length – from nose to tail – of up to 3.5 metres. The biggest known Polar Bear had a weight of 1,002 kilograms and a length of 3.65 metres. The Polar Bear’s fur is white to yellowish and has the property to convert 95 percent of the ultraviolet radiation into heat. Every single hair of the fur – it is transparent and hollow – is able to capture the light from any direction. The Polar Bear’s fur insulates optimally and gives almost no heat off to the outside. The food of the Polar Bearconsists mainly of meat, but also of seaweed, crabs, sea birds, bird eggs, berries, carrion, and sometimes they even carry off some flat fish. The Ursus maritimus is an excellent swimmer and was already seen several hundred kilometres far into the open sea. It is also a good diver and is able to stay under water for up to two minutes. High up in the north, west of Hudson Bay, is the location of Churchill, the city with Canada’s most northern deep-sea harbour. Every year from the end of September until mid-November, Churchill, which is located at the edge of the timberline in the middle of an ancient Polar Bear trail, turns into the "Polar Bear Capital of the World". With cross-country vehicles, the so-called “Tundra Buggies“, it is possible to watch the Polar Bears in the tundra between Nelson and Churchill River. Between mid-November and the end of November, when the Hudson Bay freezes up – often the temperatures fall below –50° Celsius -, the Polar Bears disappear abruptly from the coastal stretches. At this time they stay up to 300 kilometres away from the land on the frozen bay. Here at the open watering places they hunt for seals. They carry them off by sneaking up to the seals lying on the ice, which sometimes can take hours, or they waylay them at the holes in the ice crust. Sometimes they also hunt for seals in the open water channels by swimming. In July, when the ice starts to melt at the end of the Arctic spring, the Polar Bears often let themselves be carried ashore on ice floes. Their destination is the mainland or the endless tundra along the coast. In late summer they head north again. In this season, the Polar Bears search for carrion of marine creatures. Their food also consists of land mammals and plants. In the northwest of Hudson Bay they wait for frost and ice. Then the time of hunger is over, the cycle closes as soon as they have reached the open water channels with the seals.

© Klaus Jost - wildlife- & nature- & underwater
All texts and pictures present at this website, are protected by international copyright laws.
Each kind of the duplication, which is manipulating or storage of pictures without the written permission of Klaus Jost is expressly forbidden.