Kermode bear
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| Ursus americanus kermodei Hornaday, 1905 |
The Kermode Bear (Ursus americanus kermodei), also known as the "spirit bear", is a subspecies of the American Black Bear living in the central coast of British Columbia, and noted for about 1/10 of their population having white or cream-colored coats. This color variant is due to a unique recessive trait in their gene pool—they are neither albino nor related to polar bears, nor the "blond" brown bears of Alaska's "ABC Islands".
Because of their ghost-like appearance, "spirit bears" hold a prominent place in the Canadian First Nations/ American Indian mythology of the area.[1]
The kermodei subspecies ranges from Princess Royal Island to Prince Rupert, British Columbia on the coast, and inland toward Hazelton, British Columbia. It is known to the indigenous population as Moksgm’ol. In the February 2006 Speech from the Throne by the Government of British Columbia, the premier announced his government's intention to designate the Kermode or spirit bear as British Columbia's official animal.
The Kermode bear was named after Francis Kermode, a Canadian who researched the species and a colleague of William Hornaday, the zoologist who described it.[2]
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[edit] Coat color
In 2001, it was reported that a single-nucleotide replacement in the melanocortin 1 receptor gene (mc1r) is responsible for the coat color of the Kermode bear. Scientists sampled the DNA from 220 bears and found a complete association of a recessive allele with the white phase. [3]
[edit] Recent Sightings
While on an expedition in the coastal forests of British Columbia in the late spring of 2009, wildlife photographer Steve Kozlowski found and photographed a bear which displayed the recessive white color.[4]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Last Stand of the Great Bear. National Geographic. 2006. ISBN 0-7922-4110-X.
- ^ Steve Warmack. "The Kermode Bear". http://users.aristotle.net/~swarmack/kermode.html. Retrieved on 2008-04-18.
- ^ Kermit Ritland, Craig Newton, and H. Dawn Marshall (18 September 2001). "Inheritance and population structure of the white-phased “Kermode” black bear". Current Biology 11 (18): 1468–1472. doi:.
- ^ "Spirit bear captured on camera". The Daily Telegraph. 5 June 2009. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5452533/Spirit-bear-captured-on-camera.html. Retrieved on 2009-06-06.
[edit] External links
- Kermode Bear Information Learn more about the Kermode Bear, or Spirit Bear.
