Animal
Polar bear
The polar bear is a big white bear that lives on the ice near the North Pole. It is a strong swimmer and hunts seals.
The polar bear is a huge bear that lives on the frozen sea of the Arctic. Thick fur and a layer of fat keep it warm, its amazing nose finds seals under the snow, and it can swim for many hours. It needs sea ice to hunt, so a warming Arctic is a big problem for it.
Ursus maritimus, the 'sea bear', is the largest living bear species and is classed as a marine mammal because it depends on Arctic sea ice to hunt seals. About 26,000 remain in 19 subpopulations around the North Pole. The IUCN lists it as Vulnerable because sea ice is shrinking as the climate warms.
Photo: Arturo de Frias Marques, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Meet the polar bear
The polar bear is a very big bear.
It has white fur, a black nose and big, wide paws. It lives in the cold, snowy Arctic. It loves to swim in icy water.
The polar bear is the largest kind of bear alive today. A big male can weigh as much as 600 kilograms, about as much as eight grown-ups, and measure up to about 2.7 meters from nose to tail.
Its scientific name, Ursus maritimus, means 'sea bear', and that fits. Polar bears spend most of their lives on the frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean, called sea ice, and they are such good swimmers that scientists count them as marine mammals, like seals and whales.
Ursus maritimus is the largest extant bear: most adult males weigh about 300 to 635 kilograms and most females 150 to 250 kilograms, with head-and-body lengths of about 1.8 to 2.7 meters. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service classifies it as a marine mammal, because it lives and hunts mainly on sea ice.
Polar bears evolved from brown bear ancestors, and the two species still overlap in northern Canada, Alaska and eastern Russia. Estimates of when they split differ: San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance gives about 200,000 years ago, Polar Bears International about 343,000 to 479,000 years, and the Fish and Wildlife Service roughly 500,000 years, so the date is still being studied.
Quick facts
- Group
- Mammal
- Length
- 1.8 to 2.7 m
- Weight
- 300 to 635 kg
- Lifespan in the wild
- 15 to 25 years
Where it lives
Polar bears live in the Arctic, at the top of the world.
There the sea freezes into big sheets of ice. Polar bears walk on the ice and swim between the pieces.
Polar bears live all the way around the North Pole, in the Arctic parts of Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia and the United States (Alaska). Their real home is the sea ice, the frozen top of the ocean, especially where it cracks open and seals come up to breathe.
In places where the ice melts completely in summer, the bears have to come ashore and wait on land until the sea freezes again in the fall.
The species has one of the largest ranges of any living large carnivore: the circumpolar Arctic, mostly north of the Arctic Circle. The Fish and Wildlife Service recognizes 19 subpopulations in seasonally and permanently ice-covered waters of Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia and the United States; the U.S. holds parts of two, the Chukchi Sea and Southern Beaufort Sea. The IUCN lists the same five range states, with Iceland only as a vagrant.
Where the ice melts out completely each summer, bears move ashore and fast or scavenge until the sea freezes again. The map shades the Arctic Ocean and the range countries, but only their Arctic coasts and ice are polar bear country.
Continents
Its habitat
Where can you find this animal?
- Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
- Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
Sea ice and coasts of the Arctic Ocean around the North Pole, in the Arctic parts of Canada, Greenland, Norway (Svalbard), Russia and the United States (Alaska). Only the far northern coasts and ice of each country shown are polar bear country.
Places: Arctic Ocean, Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia and United States.
Source: iucn-red-list · checked October 2026
Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Counts of GBIF records of wild observations (human and machine) and preserved specimens. Records include introduced populations, vagrants, escaped or released animals and misidentifications, so a country with records is not necessarily part of the native range.
Wild sightings have been recorded in Canada, United States, Greenland, Norway, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and 10 more places.
Source: gbif · checked October 2026
Range maps show where scientists say an animal lives, often country by country. An animal may live in only part of a country shown, and sightings records can include animals that wandered far from home.
What it eats
Polar bears mostly eat seals.
A polar bear waits quietly by a hole in the ice. When a seal comes up to breathe, the bear catches it. One big meal can last many days.
Polar bears are carnivores, and their favorite food is the ringed seal, the most common seal in the Arctic. Seals are full of fat, called blubber, which gives a bear lots of energy.
A polar bear is patient. It can stand still for hours beside a seal's breathing hole in the ice, waiting for a seal to pop up. One ringed seal can give a bear enough energy for about 11 days, and polar bears usually eat every four or five days. They sometimes eat other things, like dead whales or seaweed, but they really need seals.
Polar bears specialize in ringed seals and, to a lesser degree, bearded seals, hunting mainly at open leads and breathing holes using sit-and-wait tactics. When hunting is good they may eat only the blubber and skin; Polar Bears International reports a bear can eat more than 45 kilograms of blubber at one sitting.
They occasionally take walruses and belugas, and the remains of bowhead whales, from subsistence harvest, strandings or orca kills, are an important seasonal food in parts of the Southern Beaufort Sea, Svalbard and Chukotka. Caribou, grass and seaweed are eaten too, but San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance notes none of these has been shown to replace the high-calorie seal diet.
Did you know?
Some polar bears slide down snowy hills just for fun.
Polar bears have been seen sliding down slopes again and again, apparently just for fun.
Repeated sliding on snow and ice with no obvious purpose has been observed and is interpreted as play.
Built for the cold
Polar bear fur looks white, but each hair is see-through and hollow.
Under the fur is a thick layer of fat. Fur on the bottom of its paws stops it slipping on ice. Its nose can smell a seal far away.
Polar bears have two layers of fur: a thick, soft undercoat and long outer guard hairs that shed water. The hairs are actually clear, hollow tubes filled with air. They look white because of the way they reflect light, and sometimes look yellow from oils or the sun.
Under the skin is a layer of fat 5 to 10 centimeters thick that keeps the bear warm, stores energy and helps it float. Small bumps and stiff fur on its huge paws grip the ice. And its nose is amazing: a polar bear may smell a seal on the ice from about 32 kilometers away.
Insulation comes from a dense underfur protected by long guard hairs that clump when wet and shed water on land. Each hair is a transparent, hollow, air-filled tube; the coat appears white, cream or yellowish depending on light, oils from the diet and sun oxidation. A blubber layer 5 to 10 centimeters thick stores energy, insulates and adds buoyancy. Being so well insulated, polar bears can overheat and cool off in the water.
The broad forepaws paddle while the hind legs steer. Papillae on the pads and stiff fur on the soles add traction and muffle footsteps. A nictitating membrane protects the eyes in blowing snow and underwater. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance reports the bear can smell a seal on the ice about 32 kilometers away and locate a breathing hole up to 1.6 kilometers away.
Growing up
A mother polar bear digs a den in the snow.
Her babies are born there in the middle of winter. The cubs are tiny and drink her rich milk. In spring they come out to play.
Polar bears mate in spring. In October or November, a pregnant mother digs a den in a snowbank, about the size of a phone booth but much warmer inside than the air outside. In December or January she gives birth, usually to twins.
Newborn cubs weigh only about half a kilogram, about as much as a loaf of bread, and are born with their eyes closed. Their mother's milk is very rich, so they grow fast. By spring they weigh about 9 kilograms and follow her out onto the ice. Cubs stay with their mother until they are about 2 years old.
Mating takes place from about March to mid-July. The fertilized egg does not implant straight away; this delayed implantation, usually triggered between September and November, lets a female carry a pregnancy only if she is in good condition. Pregnant females dig maternity dens between September and December and give birth in December or January to one to three cubs, most often twins.
Cubs weigh just over 0.5 kilograms at birth and are blind and nearly hairless. Milk about 36 percent fat lets them reach about 9 kilograms by April. They stay with their mother for about two years, so a successful female breeds at most every three years. Females first give birth at about 5 to 6 years old. This slow reproduction makes populations slow to recover.
A life on the ice
Most polar bears live on their own.
They rest a lot, sometimes most of the day. Young bears like to play. Some bears even slide down snowy hills for fun.
Apart from mothers with cubs, polar bears usually live alone. They wander huge areas of sea ice following the seals, and may travel more than 1,000 kilometers in one season. They do not defend territories.
Polar bears are clever and playful. Pairs of bears sometimes become friends for weeks or even years and play-wrestle together. Unlike brown and black bears, most polar bears do not hibernate. Only pregnant females spend the winter in a den; the others keep hunting through the dark Arctic winter.
Polar bears are largely solitary, with large, overlapping home ranges and no territorial defense, though several may gather at a whale carcass. Individuals can range more than 1,000 kilometers in a season, and they swim well: San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance reports swims of more than 100 kilometers without rest, and longer swims as sea ice retreats.
Moving costs a polar bear about twice as much energy as it does most mammals, which helps explain why bears rest up to 20 hours a day and hunt by waiting rather than chasing. Only pregnant females overwinter in dens; other bears keep hunting and shelter in temporary snow dens in severe weather. Play, often as ritualized mock wrestling, is common, and lasting associations between individual bears have been observed.
Did you know?
A polar bear can smell a seal very far away.
A polar bear may smell a seal on the ice from about 32 kilometers away, about the length of 300 soccer fields.
San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance reports polar bears can detect a seal on the ice about 32 kilometers away and a breathing hole about 1.6 kilometers away.
Polar bears and a warming Arctic
Polar bears need sea ice to catch seals.
The Arctic is getting warmer, so there is less ice. People all over the world are working to help. Using less energy helps polar bears too.
There are about 26,000 polar bears in the wild. They are listed as Vulnerable, which means they could become endangered. The main reason is climate change. As the Earth warms, the Arctic is losing sea ice, so bears have less ice to hunt seals from and must swim longer distances.
When bears are stuck on land, some look for food near towns, which is risky for bears and people. In the United States polar bears are protected by law, scientists track them to learn what they need, and slowing climate change is the most important help of all.
The global population was estimated at about 26,000 in 2023, with status varying among the 19 subpopulations. The IUCN lists the species as Vulnerable (criterion A3c), based on a projected decline driven by loss of sea ice habitat. A study cited by Polar Bears International projects that, without action on climate change, only a few populations would remain by the end of the century.
Other pressures include industrial development, disturbance of maternity dens and bears drawn to garbage near settlements. In the United States the species is protected under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, with an exception for subsistence harvest by Alaska Native peoples. Researchers track wild bears, and studies of hearing in zoo bears help set noise limits around dens.
IUCN Red List
How is the polar bear doing in the wild?
- Least Concern
- Near Threatened
- Vulnerable (this animal)
- Endangered
- Critically Endangered
- Extinct in the Wild
- Extinct
Vulnerable
At high risk of disappearing from the wild.
See the IUCN Red List assessment · The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022.2
Amazing facts
-
Polar bear hairs are see-through, not white.
Each polar bear hair is a clear, hollow tube filled with air. The coat only looks white because of the way it reflects light.
Guard hairs are transparent and hollow; the coat's whiteness comes from scattered light, and oils or sun oxidation can turn it cream or yellow.
-
A polar bear can smell a seal very far away.
A polar bear may smell a seal on the ice from about 32 kilometers away, about the length of 300 soccer fields.
San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance reports polar bears can detect a seal on the ice about 32 kilometers away and a breathing hole about 1.6 kilometers away.
-
A baby polar bear weighs about as much as a loaf of bread.
A newborn polar bear cub weighs only about half a kilogram, but its mother will weigh hundreds of times more.
Cubs weigh just over 0.5 kilograms at birth, yet milk of about 36 percent fat, the richest of any bear, takes them to about 9 kilograms by April.
-
Some polar bears slide down snowy hills just for fun.
Polar bears have been seen sliding down slopes again and again, apparently just for fun.
Repeated sliding on snow and ice with no obvious purpose has been observed and is interpreted as play.
Words to know
- sea ice
- the frozen top layer of the ocean
- blubber
- a thick layer of fat under the skin of seals, whales and polar bears
- marine mammal
- a mammal that lives in or depends on the sea
- den
- a sheltered home, such as a cave dug in the snow
- carnivore
- an animal that eats mainly meat
- climate change
- a long-term change in Earth's weather patterns, including warming
- vulnerable
- at high risk of becoming endangered
Discovery challenge
-
What do polar bears mostly eat?
What is a polar bear's main food?
Which prey forms the core of the polar bear's diet?
- Seals
- Bamboo
- Bananas
Show the answer
Seals
Polar bears mostly eat seals.
Ringed seals are their main food; the seals' fat gives bears lots of energy.
Ringed seals, and to a lesser extent bearded seals; their blubber supplies the high-calorie diet the bears need.
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What keeps a polar bear warm?
What keeps polar bears warm in icy water?
Which combination insulates a polar bear?
- A woolly hat
- Thick fur and fat
- Hot springs
Show the answer
Thick fur and fat
Thick fur and a layer of fat keep it warm.
Two layers of fur and a layer of fat up to 10 centimeters thick keep in the heat.
Dense underfur, water-shedding hollow guard hairs and 5 to 10 centimeters of blubber.
-
Where are polar bear cubs born?
Where are polar bear cubs born?
Which polar bears spend the winter in dens?
- In a tree
- In a snow den
- On a beach
Show the answer
In a snow den
Their mother digs a cozy den in the snow.
A pregnant mother digs a den in a snowbank and gives birth there in midwinter.
Only pregnant females overwinter in maternity dens; other bears keep hunting through winter.
-
Why is melting ice bad for polar bears?
Why is melting sea ice a problem for polar bears?
Why is the polar bear listed as Vulnerable?
- They need ice to hunt seals
- Ice is their favorite food
- They are scared of water
Show the answer
They need ice to hunt seals
Polar bears walk on the ice to catch seals.
With less ice, bears have less time to hunt seals and must swim farther.
A projected population decline from loss of sea ice habitat (IUCN criterion A3c).
Places where you might see it
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Watch
Country
Norway
Norway stretches along the western side of the Scandinavian Peninsula, far into the Arctic. Deep, narrow inlets of the sea called fjords cut into its mountains, and about 5.6 million people live there, many of them near Oslo, the capital.
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Watch
Country
Canada
Canada is the second-largest country in the world, stretching across the north of North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific and up into the Arctic. It has the Rocky Mountains, thousands of islands and about 42 million people, who speak English, French and many other languages.
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Natural wonder
Svalbard
Svalbard is a group of Arctic islands, part of Norway, far north of the Arctic Circle. Glaciers and snowfields cover nearly 60 percent of the land. Polar bears hunt seals on the sea ice, walruses rest on the beaches, and inside a mountain on Spitsbergen the world keeps a frozen store of seeds.
Experiments to try
Explore next
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Watch
3D
Animal
Brown bear
The brown bear lives in more places than any other bear, from European forests to the mountains of Asia and the rivers of Alaska. It eats almost anything, from berries to salmon, and spends the long winter asleep in a cozy den. Grizzly bears and Kodiak bears are brown bears too.
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Watch
Animal
American black bear
The American black bear is the most common bear in North America. It lives mostly in forests, climbs trees with its short, curved claws, eats mainly plants, and spends the winter in a den. Not all black bears are black: some are brown, cinnamon, blue-gray or even white.
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Watch
Animal
Arctic fox
The Arctic fox lives on the frozen tundra around the North Pole. Its coat changes color with the seasons, white or blue-gray in winter and brown or gray in summer, and it has short ears, a short nose and furry feet to keep the cold out. It eats lemmings, birds and leftovers from polar bears.
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Watch
3D
Animal
Walrus
The walrus is a huge Arctic sea mammal with long ivory tusks and a thick mustache of whiskers. It feels for clams on the sea floor, sucks out the soft part, and rests in big, noisy groups on sea ice and beaches.
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Watch
Animal
Beluga whale
The beluga whale is a small white whale of the Arctic. It has no fin on its back, a soft, round forehead it can change shape, and a neck that bends, and it makes so many whistles, chirps and clicks that sailors called it the canary of the sea.
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Watch
3D
Animal
Narwhal
The narwhal is a toothed whale of the icy Arctic Ocean. Most males have a long, spiral tusk that is really a tooth growing forward out of the front of the jaw, and it can be up to about 3 meters long. Narwhals dive deep under the sea ice to catch fish, squid and shrimp.
- Watch Try it What If? Lab What if all the sea ice melted? Sea ice floats, so it is already pushing aside about as much water as it will make when it melts, like an ice cube in a glass. In our model, melting all the Arctic's springtime sea ice raises the sea by only about 2 millimeters. The same ice melting on land would raise it about 7 centimeters.
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Watch
Country
Norway
Norway stretches along the western side of the Scandinavian Peninsula, far into the Arctic. Deep, narrow inlets of the sea called fjords cut into its mountains, and about 5.6 million people live there, many of them near Oslo, the capital.
For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Describe how fur, fat, paws and smell help the polar bear live in the Arctic.
- Explain why polar bears depend on sea ice to catch seals.
- Describe the polar bear life cycle, including denning and cubs.
- Connect a warming climate to the loss of sea ice and the risk to polar bears.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Why might a polar bear wait by a seal's breathing hole instead of chasing seals?
- How is a polar bear's coat like the clothes you wear in winter?
- What could people far from the Arctic do to help polar bears?
Try at home or in class
- Blubber glove: fill a zip bag with vegetable shortening, put a second bag inside it, and compare how long your hand stays comfortable in ice water with and without the 'blubber'.
- Freeze a tray of water, then set it out and time how fast the 'sea ice' shrinks in a warm room and in a cool room.
Key vocabulary: sea ice, blubber, marine mammal, den, carnivore, climate change, vulnerable
Where these facts come from
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN terms of use (no redistribution of Red List data or range maps))
- GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF Occurrence Search , Global Biodiversity Information Facility (CC0 1.0 (backbone); occurrence counts are facts derived from records under CC0, CC BY and CC BY-NC)
- Polar bear , San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance
- Polar bear (Ursus maritimus) , U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
- Polar bear facts , Polar Bears International
- Ursus maritimus (Polar Bear), 2015 global assessment , IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file: Public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA only (credited on each page))
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated October 24, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.