Black bears come in more colors than any other North American mammal. They can be black, brown, cinnamon, blond, blue-gray, or white. Glacier Bear with cubs East of the Great Plains, nearly all are black.
These were the first bears early settlers saw, hence the name. The melanin in black fur makes the fur resistant to abrasion in the brushy understory of eastern forests. In forested states.
Scientists had a few hypotheses regarding the evolutionary purpose of colour morphs in black bears. One theory was that the colour morphs in black bears could assist in thermoregulation 2, the mechanism that mammals use to maintain their body temperature. 4 Scientists also considered that perhaps there.
Glacier Bear Ursus americanus emmonsii Possibly the most impressive color morph of the black bear, is the blue. However, color phase black bears range widely from jet black to chocolate, blonde and even cinnamon or grey color phases. So, if you're after a color phase black bears, you need to go bear hunting in the right area.
Color variation is a frequent evolutionary substrate for camouflage in small mammals, but the underlying genetics and evolutionary forces that drive color variation in natural populations of large mammals are mostly unexplained. The American black bear, Ursus americanus (U. americanus), exhibits a range of colors including the cinnamon morph, which has a similar color to the brown bear, U.
Alaska is also home to Black Bears whose fur takes on a bluish gray coloring. Though bears in the northern population will still have the standard black coloring. Yellowstone Bear World If seeing bears is your kind of thing, then visiting Yellowstone Bear World should be on your to do list.
We have numerous Black Bear in wide range of color phases. In 1987, a researcher from Manitoba named Dr. Richard Rounds published a seminal paper comparing decades of regional reports about black bear color distribution with contemporary surveys from biologists and outfitters.
In total, they examined over 40,000 records of harvested or tagged bears and documented the percentage of black and non-black morphs, the latter being a collective term for all. Here, we show that the cinnamon morph of the American black bear shares phenotypic similarity with brown bears in their coat coloration, and we demonstrate that eumelanin dilution causes this similarity. Reports of Color Morphs While black is the most common color phase, black bears can display a variety of coat colors including cinnamon, chocolate, blonde, blue-gray, and even white.
The white phase, known as a kermode or spirit bear, is found in coastal British Columbia. One of the most remarkable color morphs of the black bear is the Kermode bear, also known as the "spirit bear." Unique to the central and north coast of British Columbia, these white or cream.