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Polar Bear

Ursus maritimus · easy

A polar bear is a marine mammal that happens to walk. It is classified as marine because it depends on sea ice rather than land, hunting seals at breathing holes and along floe edges, and it will swim for days between ice floes when it has to.

Almost everything about it is insulation. Beneath the fur the skin is black, absorbing whatever heat the low Arctic sun offers. The hairs themselves are not white but hollow and transparent, scattering light in a way that reads as white against snow. Under that sits a thick fat layer that does most of the actual work — polar bears are better at overheating than freezing, and will lie spread-eagled on ice to shed warmth after exertion.

Hunting is mostly patience. A bear may wait motionless beside a seal's breathing hole for hours for a single strike. That method requires a stable ice platform, and it is the reason the species is so exposed to a warming Arctic: as ice forms later and breaks up earlier, the hunting season shortens and bears come ashore thinner.

Females dig snow dens to give birth, emerging in spring with cubs small enough to have been born blind and barely larger than a guinea pig.

Where it lives

Worml lists the polar bear as native to 5 countries — Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia and United States. Its habitat is arctic sea ice and coastal tundra.

Ranges here are reduced to whole countries for playability and exclude introduced populations — see about the data for what that simplification leaves out.

In the game

Polar Bear is rated easy. To solve the round you need to find any 3 of its 5 listed countries. How scoring works →

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