08/19/2011 | Rare albino brown bear

Have you ever seen a brown bear that was almost completely white? This respected and rare creature is found in the moss-covered tropical forest in British Columbia in Canada. These are fresh August photos taken for National Geographic by photographer Paul Nicklen. "Scientists don't really know why brown bears born white," says Bruce Barcott of National Geographic.

Reference. Albinism (lat. albus - white)- congenital absence of pigment in the skin, hair, iris and pigment membranes of the eye. There are complete and partial albinism. Currently, it is believed that the cause of albinism is the absence (or blockade) of the tyrosinase enzyme, which is necessary for the normal synthesis of melanin, a special substance on which the color of tissues depends.

Traditionally, albinism is classified depending on the phenotypic manifestations into two broad categories: oculocutaneous albinism (OCA) and ocular albinism (GA). As a result of recent molecular genetic studies, the classification of albinism has undergone some changes. Now, along with the phenotype, they began to take into account the genotype. This led to the redefinition of existing phenotypic categories and the emergence of new subspecies based on a particular genetic mutation.

The following is modern classification albinism. OCA is characterized by the absence or reduction of melanin in the skin, hair, and visual system (including the optic nerve). The lack of pigment in the skin not only affects its color, but also increases the risk of skin cancer.

In some countries, albinos are often subject to ridicule, persecution and discrimination. In Tanzania in last years more than 20 albinos fell victim to the beliefs and superstitions that the skin, meat and bones of albinos can be successfully used to treat all sorts of diseases. These rumors are sometimes deliberately spread by local medicine men. As a result of these superstitions, the lives of many albino Tanzanians are in daily danger. Rumors about the healing properties of albinos began to gradually spread in neighboring Kenya.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albinism

just for lulz...

In the remote forests on the west coast of Canada lives a mysterious ghost bear, as the local Indians called it. It was first described by Francis Kermode, which is why the bear is called Kermode (Ursus americanus kermodei).

Let's find out more about it...

To see this animal, you need to get to its habitat by seaplane or boat. It is one of the subspecies of the American black bear, the baribal. And about ten percent of individuals have white or light cream colored hair!

Is not polar bear and not an albino, as one might think. Scientists believe that this is how genetics worked, and the trait was fixed. In all other manifestations, it is an ordinary black bear, only white. Its dimensions can reach 1.8 meters in length and up to a meter in height at the shoulders. Males weigh up to 300 kg, females are smaller.

Like all baribals, it has a rather long muzzle, large, up to 8 cm, ears and a short tail.

The Kermode bear hunts for salmon, which rises to spawn. When not hungry, it eats only caviar and head, the remains of the fish rot and serve as food for the local lush vegetation.

When the fishing season ends, it feeds mainly on plant foods: grass, mushrooms, berries, honey, although it does not disdain carrion and insects.

In autumn it hibernates for half a year, a cleft or a cave in the mountains, a depression under the roots of a fallen tree can serve as a lair. In the middle of winter, cubs weighing about 300 grams are born, by spring they grow several times and can follow their mother.

For the fact that these “bear spirits” still exist today, we must thank the Indians and settlers who never mined them for the sake of an amazing white skin. Although this is a rather timid predator, which, even when wounded, does not attack, but flees.

Here is how Bruce Barcott describes his encounter with this bear:

The Great Bear Rainforest is one of the largest coastal protected forests. temperate zone. This woodland is located in Canada, and it often drizzles with light rain. The fish, heavy from caviar, overflows the full-flowing rivers of the forest - a real expanse for many predators. Now a clubfoot figure is clumsily descending to the bank of the river - a black bear is going to have breakfast.

Marven Robinson noticed the bear, but remained indifferent to its appearance. “Maybe we'll have better luck upstream,” Robinson says. Wrapped from head to toe in rain gear, Marven, 43, is a forest guide and a member of the Gitgaat Indian tribe, one of the fourteen tribes. ancient people Tsimshian. A black bear is not at all what Marven wants to find today. He is looking for a much rarer and more revered creature - the beast that the Gitgaat Indians call "muxgmol", the ghost bear, a walking contradiction - the polar black bear.

The ghost bear (Kermode bear) is not a hybrid, but a white variety of the North American black bear, and it lives exclusively in the forests of the western coast of Canada. Grizzlies, black bears, wolves, wolverines, humpback whales and killer whales are found in abundance in the region, which has been inhabited since time immemorial by indigenous Indian tribes, that

Marven notices a bunch of white wool caught on an alder branch. “They are somewhere nearby, that’s for sure,” says Marven, pointing to the gnawed bark. “They like to stand and chew on tree bark, just to let other bears know I live here and feed on this river.”

An hour passes. Robinson and I wait patiently, perched on a moss-covered boulder. Finally, a rustle was heard in the bushes. The polar bear comes out from under the forest cover and sits on a rock that rises above the surface of the river. No, it's not pure white at all.

Rather, like a vanilla-colored carpet that has not been cleaned for a long time. The bear turns its head from side to side, peering into the stream in search of fish. But before he makes an attempt to catch prey, a black bear unexpectedly runs out of the forest and drives the white from his observation post. Although, runs out is too strong a word. The bears are moving in slow motion, as if they are trying to save every calorie before the oncoming hungry winter. The polar bear walks heavily away and disappears into the thicket.

Robinson has lived near ghost bears since childhood. But still, every time he meets them, he freezes, fascinated. “This polar bear is very shy,” says Robinson. “Sometimes my heart just sank. I want to protect the albino. Once I saw an old polar bear attacked by a young black beast. I was ready to rush to them and release the entire pepper spray on the aggressor. But, fortunately, the white reared up and threw off the attacker. Robinson smiles, knowing perfectly well the absurdity of a man's desire to intervene in a bear fight.

The defense instinct is very strong among the inhabitants of the Great Bear Rainforest. And this is one of the reasons that the ghost bear managed to survive. “Our people have never hunted a polar bear,” says Helen Clifton, whom we talk to in the kitchen of her home in Hartley Bay, a small fishing village. Helen, an 86-year-old woman with a strong and confident voice, is the matriarch of the Gitgaat clan. Helen reveals bear meat has never been a common food local residents. When European traders set up a fur company here in the late eighteenth century, Indian hunters zealously undertook to supply black bear skins. But even in those days, touching a polar bear was forbidden, this is a taboo - a tradition carried through many generations. “We never even talk about the ghost bear,” Helen says.

Even today, the Gitgaat and Kitasu-Xayxais Indians carefully look after their wards during the hunting season. “Hunting a polar bear on our land is not a very good idea,” says Robinson. “We don't know what might happen. Sometimes our tribesmen can shoot back.”

The bears have had a hard time for a long time: decades of poaching, trophy hunting and sawmill operations have led to the fact that grizzly bears have become rare in the region. But when industrial enterprises closed and grizzly hunting banned in some parts of the rainforest, the bears reacted very quickly. “When I was younger, seeing a grizzly was a real experience,” says Doug Stewart. As a fishery officer, he has been overseeing the spawning of fish in the realm of the Great Bear for 35 years. “And now,” Doug continues, “you can see them all the time. Sometimes I see up to five grizzlies in a morning.”

They are so bred that experts fear that grizzlies will push blacks, and especially the white variety of black bears, away from the best fishing spots on the river. “Where there are grizzlies, you don’t see a black bear, and you don’t see a white one either,” says Doug Nislos, a forest guide from the Kitasu-Xayxais tribe. “Black bears prefer to stay away from grizzlies.”

This fact gives grounds for an interesting assumption: perhaps it was the grizzlies that provided the increased concentration of the Kermode bear gene on the islands of Gribbell and Princess Royal. “Grizzlies and black bears coexist everywhere except on these small islands,” says Thomas Reimchen, a biologist at the University of Victoria. “The habitat there is too limited for grizzlies. They need large grassy estuaries, subalpine meadows and a vast individual territory, which you will not find on the islands.

The white color of the Kermode bear is due to the meeting of two recessive alleles of the MC1R gene, the same gene that is responsible for blond hair and skin in humans. To be born white, the animal must inherit one allele from each of the parents, who do not necessarily have to be white, they only have to be carriers of the recessive trait. Therefore, it is not at all rare that a white bear cub is born to a black couple. On the British Columbia mainland, white is found in one in 40 or even 100 black bears.

It is still unclear how the mutation that led to the appearance of white coloration in black bears arose. A "glacial" hypothesis was put forward: allegedly, the white color appeared as an adaptation during the last ice age, which ended here 11 thousand years ago. In those times most of present-day British Columbia was covered with ice, and the white skin could serve as an excellent camouflage.

Doug Nislos and I are going to Princess Royal Island. Jumping out of the boat to the shore near the mouth of a small river, Doug says: "Hello, bear!". As if greeting an old friend named Bear, although not a single animal is visible nearby. “We don’t want to take them by surprise,” - from the lips of a young 28-year-old man, these words sound unexpected. On his belt is a can of extra strong pepper spray. Doug crunches over boulders covered with a scattering of small shells and pushes back the curtain of the rainforest.

We take a position under tall tree hemlock and tighten the ribbons of the hoods to protect themselves from the endless rain. Recently, Doug saw a polar bear here, but there is no guarantee that the bear will come here today. But we were lucky: at the beginning of the fourth, Doug points me to the opposite side of the river. The polar bear waddles along the shore. A thick layer of fat rolls under the skin on his stomach. It seems that the skin is large for a clubfoot by a couple of sizes. The bear stops over a small pool, then quickly rushes into the water and - here it is, prey: a well-fed fish about a meter long.

Recent studies have shown that the white color gives the ghost bear a definite advantage when catching fish. At night, bears also get food, and then success equally accompanies white and black individuals. However, Reimchen and Dan Kinka from the University of Victoria noted that during the daytime the number good luck white and black relatives are different: polar bears manage to catch fish in one out of three attempts, and black bears in one out of four. “Light objects seen through the surface of the water are less likely to scare away fish,” suggests Reimchen. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why such a sign as a white coat color has survived to this day. salmon fish is the main source of fat and protein for coastal bears, so a lucky female can accumulate more fat for the winter, potentially increasing the number of cubs she will give birth to.

Princess Royal Island is still at the mercy of the rain, and Doug Nislos and I watch the ghost bear feast. When there is a lot of prey, bears become picky. Some only eat fish heads. Others rip open the stomachs of the fish and suck out the eggs. Still others turn into a glutton and try to eat as much as possible more fish. “I once saw a ghost bear eat 80 salmon in one sitting,” Nislos smiles. But our bear has his own trick: he prefers to dine alone. Clubfoot takes the fish in his teeth and moves off up the hillside to look for a place more secluded. About twenty minutes later he returns, catches another fish and takes it back to the forest. This continues for several hours, until night falls on the island - and we leave our observation post.

are polar bears albinos?)) and got the best answer

Answer from Lenzel[guru]
Albino polar bears are those with red eyes (sometimes nose). but they do not occur in nature! So there are no...

How is a polar bear different from a white crow? Well, about the wings and the Far North - this is understandable, it can be seen with the naked eye. Their main difference is that the white crow is an albino, and the polar bear is not.
And therefore, the white crow is the dream of any zoo, and it will cost much more than a polar bear, or even a tiger, because only as a result of an unforeseen genotypic failure, such birds and albino animals are born, which makes them rare.


Everything is white: from the beak to the claws, from the horns to the hooves. And their eyes appear red due to the fact that the blood vessels are visible through the iris. In ordinary white animals with melanin, everything is in order. Their noses, paw pads, eyes are colored quite brightly. And white wool, feathers or scales are the result of painstaking work natural selection.


But albinos are fundamentally different from wild animals dressed in snow-white clothes, “received” by nature as a result of the painstaking work of natural selection. Polar owls, mute and whooper swans, white gulls, white whales, polar bears are not albinos at all. In the body of these animals, melanins are produced exactly as much as is necessary for normal life, and those tissues and organs that, according to nature's plan, should contain pigments, are intensely colored in them.


Source: But if on the contrary, then albinos are bears ... :) Legend has it that the coloring of the polar bear reminds us of times when the earth was covered with ice.

Answer from Nika[guru]
Yes. but no one has ever seen them before.

Answer from Dasha[active]
No

Answer from t. h[guru]
They died out. In polar bears, only the wool seems white (the hair tubes are transparent), and the skin is black.

Answer from Lida[guru]
there are

Answer from 3 answers[guru]

Hey! Here is a selection of topics with answers to your question: are polar bears albinos?))