The research team concluded that all living polar bears trace their maternal ancestor to a brown bear that lived near present-day Britain and Ireland just prior to the last ice age.
An international team of scientists has discovered that the female ancestor of all living polar bears was a brown bear that lived in present-day Britain and Ireland during the last ice age - 20,000 to 50,000 years ago. Changes in climate affecting the North Atlantic ice sheet probably gave rise to periodic overlaps in bear habitats. These overlaps then led to interbreeding between bears, an event that caused maternal DNA from brown bears to be introduced into polar bears. The research is expected to help guide future conservation efforts for polar bears, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The results of the study are published online on 7 July 2011 in the journal Current Biology. Polar and brown bears are very different species in terms of body size, skin and coat colour, fur type, tooth structure, and many other physical features. Behaviourally, they are also quite distinct.
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