spitzbergen-3
fb  Spitsbergen Panoramas - 360-degree panoramas  de  en  nb  Spitsbergen Shop  
pfeil Calendar 2025: Spitsbergen & Greenland pfeil
Marker
Home* News and Stories → Evo­lu­ti­on of Polar bears

Evo­lu­ti­on of Polar bears

Ana­ly­sis of a polar bear jaw­bo­ne that was found on Prins Karls For­land has not only yiel­ded an age of 110.000 to 130.000 years, but also pro­vi­ded new infor­ma­ti­on on the evo­lu­ti­on of the spe­ci­es. The results con­firm that the spe­ci­es “polar bear” is very young inde­ed and had split from brown bears as recent­ly as around 150.000 years ago, as DNA ana­ly­sis from the fos­sil have shown. Adapt­a­ti­on to the high arc­tic envi­ron­ment must then have been rather fast and effi­ci­ent.

Polar bear skull in arc­tic desert-kind of tun­dra.
Fos­sils are rare­ly found as polar bears spend most of their life on drift ice and usual­ly die the­re.

Evolution of Polar bears - Palanderbukta

Source: Nor­we­gi­sches Polar­in­sti­tut

Back

BOOKS, CALENDAR, POSTCARDS AND MORE

This and other publishing products of the Spitsbergen publishing house in the Spitsbergen-Shop.

last modification: 2014-07-01 · copyright: Rolf Stange
css.php