Mondo Knows Facts
Polar bears have black skin under translucent fur
Hollow transparent guard hairs channel light down to heat-absorbing skin.
A polar bear fur appears white because its clear hollow hairs scatter and reflect visible light. Underneath this dense thick coat lies dark black skin that efficiently absorbs solar heat, while a layer of subcutaneous blubber up to eleven centimetres thick insulates against Arctic cold.
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Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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Tags: polar-bear, arctic, fur
Polar bears have black skin under translucent fur: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Hollow transparent guard hairs channel light down to heat-absorbing skin. The figure is taken from Natural History Museum, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a animals fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Animals shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.