Have you ever seen a polar bear in something besides snow?

I saw a polar bear at the zoo swimming, if that counts. as a matter of fact, he was blowing bubbles.

Polar Bears in zoos have fur that is apparently white. Perhaps you are confusing the concept of natural selection over millions of years with the concept of expecting to see this happen in one lifetime.

It reflects the surrounding sunlight to appear white. The individual follicles are clear, yes, but in any light, they are in fact white to normal vision, no matter where they are.

We used to have a polar bear at our local zoo. His fur was white all right. I’ve never seen clear fur. That would be interesting. I can’t imagine who told you that.

Ya know, I learned that in elementary school, from the Zoo Books

Per this report “it was also discovered that many polar bears found in various zoos all over the continent were starting to turn a shade of green! Scientists found out that algae was the problem. The thing is, the algae was not on the outside of the polar bear hair, but on the inside! The reason for this supposedly came from pond water that surrounded the bears’.

So I might get my green bear after all?

I would think that the greenish color of the fur would more likely be from the chlorine in the water in their pond.

The individual hairs are clear, the resulting fur appears white. The same way a glass plate is clear and grinded glass becomes a white powder.

The multitude of reflections and bended light bundles from the individual transparent hairs generate reflections from pretty much all origins of light around the bear and blend that into one reflected color: white.

A polar bear on a stretch of grass still looks white, but if you put it under green lighting, it will appear green. If you turn of the light, it’s color will be black. ;-)

The polar bear at the Philadelphia Zoo is white…