I love animals - Information and questions for small kids - The Polar Bear

Have a look there on the snow of the Arctic.  Something is moving there.  But what can it be?  It is just as white as the snow, but it is very big.

A polar bear, that is what it is.  The babies are so cute and fluffy, you can almost not believe that they will grow so big.

Lets learn more about these magnificent animals that we find in the very cold Arctic.

The polar bear looks as white as the snow, but actually it has a black skin and the fur is 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. 

This bear can grow really big. it can weigh up to 600 kg and be 3m tall and is the biggest carnivore that lives on land.  A carnivore is an animal that eats meat and the Polar bear eat seals. They will also eat other types of meat if they can get hold of it, but their main diet consist of seals.  They use the ice in the sea as a platform to move on to hunt the seals.

The female polar bear is almost half as small as the male.

The polar bears are well equipped, in other words they got what is needed to survive in this very cold place.  They have a thick fur and also 'blubber' which is fat under the skin to keep it warm.  The blubber is about 10 cm thick and this is a good insulator, which means the cold from the snow do not travel through the fat into the body of the polar bear.

There are about 20 000 polar bears left in the wild in the Arctic and many zoos keep polar bears to teach people more about this animal.

They have 42 teeth with enough sharp teeth to tear the meat from the bones and to kill the seal when they catch it.  They spend a lot of their time in the water.  They need to be well insulated to withstand the cold from the water.

The scientific name for the polar bear is ‘ursus maritimus’. 

The smell of the polar bear is very well developed and they are able to smell seals for up to 1.6km far.

The polar bear can move quite fast on land and in the water.

You can read more facts on the polar bear here.

Watch the video and answer the questions.

1. How are polar bears different from other bears?
2. Say three things you know about mammals.
3. How does the feet of the polar bear help them?
4. How are the claws adapted?
5. Describe the fur of the polar bear and the function.
6. Why does the bear appear white?
7. Where are the babies born?
8. How do the polar bears find the seals?
9. What is a marine mammal?
10. How do the polar bears differ from other marine mammals?

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