Polar Bear (Ursus Maritimus)
Welcome to the big chill! Now you will need more than just a woolly hat and a pair of mittens to come visiting the Arctic, home of the famous North Pole, gargantuan ice-burgs and of course me - the Polar Bear!
Although you need warm togs to come here, I don't. I'm superbly adapted to living in seriously cold places. I have a double fur coat, and for extra insulation I have up to 11cm of fat under my skin. So long as I can keep up the fat content in my diet I won't lose any heat from my body. In fact I'm so good at keeping warm that if you were to try and photograph me at night with an infra-red camera (heat given out makes the picture), you wouldn't get a picture, all there would be is a spot made by my nose!!
Now a few facts, great facts - I'm a brilliant swimmer, 60 miles non-stop is OK for me. In fact I love water so much I will spend as much time in the water as on the ice, perhaps that's why I have the Latin name Ursus Maritimus, meaning Sea Bear. I also have partially webbed paws which help me along. As well as that my paws are an impressive 30cms across. With paws that big you would expect me to be pretty big too, well I am - actually I'm the largest land carnivore in the world (means I eat meat and rather like it!). But despite my impressive statistics, I'm in serious trouble. Climate change and pollution is wreaking havoc with my food supplies and frosty home, (it's not so frosty as it used to be).
What can you do to help? Well going organic is a great start to slowing down the pollution problem - you can't do better than an Animal Tails T-shirt with my picture on it! Another great idea is to get your parents to turn down the heating and start wearing a thermal vest - discover the joys of wearing your own insulation just like me!!
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