Ursus maritimus
Phipps, 1774 · speciesAt a glance
Sources11 archives
Databases and archives Ursus maritimus's data was compiled from.
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility5 693 records↗
OBISOcean Biodiversity Information System2 366 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI474 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics157 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
L'ours blanc, aussi connu sous le nom d'ours polaire, est un grand mammifère omnivore originaire de l'Arctique. C'est, avec l'ours kodiak et l'éléphant de mer, l'un des plus grands carnivores terrestres et il figure au sommet de sa pyramide alimentaire. Parfaitement adapté à son habitat, l'ours blanc possède une épaisse couche de graisse ainsi qu'une fourrure qui l'isolent du froid. La couleur blanche de son pelage lui assure un camouflage idéal sur la banquise et sa peau noire lui permet de mieux conserver sa chaleur corporelle. Pourvu d'une courte queue et de petites oreilles, il possède une tête relativement petite et fuselée ainsi qu'un corps allongé, caractéristiques de son adaptation à la natation. L'ours blanc est parfois considéré comme un mammifère marin semi-aquatique, dont la survie dépend essentiellement de la banquise et de la productivité marine. Il chasse aussi bien sur terre que dans l'eau. Son espérance de vie est de quinze à trente ans. Cette espèce vit uniquement sur la banquise autour du pôle Nord, au bord de l'océan Arctique. L'Union internationale pour la conservation de la nature (UICN) estime la population d'ours blancs à environ 26 000 individus. Elle considère l'espèce comme vulnérable (VU), principalement en raison du réchauffement climatique et du bouleversement de son habitat qui en résulte. En 2015, Morten Jørgensen conclut au contraire que la principale menace pesant sur l'ours polaire est la chasse, loin devant le changement climatique, et estime la population inférieure à 20 000 individus. Animal charismatique, l'ours blanc a un fort impact culturel sur les peuples Inuits, qui dépendent toujours de sa chasse pour survivre. Il a également marqué la culture populaire via certains de ses représentants comme Knut, ou encore l'art avec la sculpture d'ours blanc réalisée par François Pompon. Le parc national Wapusk au Manitoba, au Canada, est connu pour être la capitale mondiale des ours polaires. C’est l’un des meilleurs endroits pour voir ces ours dans leur environnement, particulièrement à leur arrivée en automne, alors qu’ils attendent que la baie d'Hudson gèle, afin de pouvoir y chasser le phoque.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
No structured trait data for this taxon yet.
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Ursus maritimus has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Ursus maritimus carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Chromosomes & ploidyhow the DNA is packaged
2n is the full chromosome count in a normal body cell; n is a gamete (egg or sperm), which carries half. Ploidy is how many complete chromosome sets each cell holds — 2× (diploid) is typical for animals, while higher levels (polyploidy) are common in plants. Click any value below to see the underlying records and sources.
2n 741×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The solid bar is the fossil range: the span between the oldest and the youngest fossil that palaeontologists have assigned to Ursus maritimus. Above itBeside it, the bars count how many dated finds fall in each slice of time; the tallest bar is labelled, and heights use a square-root scale so that thin slices stay visible next to rich ones. Read this as how well each stretch of time is preserved and studied — thick bars mean plenty of the right kind of rock and plenty of collectors, which is related to, but not the same as, how common it actually was.
How it livedPBDB
Record type8 179 records
Origin
Range
Depth
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions28 of 39 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Edmonton, CA | 477 |
| 730location not on record | 331 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 259 |
| Copenhagen, DK | 60 |
| Stockholm, SE | 44 |
| München, DE | 25 |
| Cambridge, US | 20 |
| Tacoma, US | 19 |
| Seattle, US | 17 |
| Helsinki, FI | 9 |
| CASlocation not on record | 8 |
| Los Angeles, US | 7 |
| Denver, US | 6 |
| Washington, US | 6 |
| NTNU-VMlocation not on record | 6 |
| East Lansing, US | 5 |
| Wuzhou, CN | 5 |
| San Diego, US | 5 |
| Iowa City, US | 5 |
| Ann Arbor, US | 4 |
| Ohio State University - Mammal Division, Columbus, OH (OSUM)location not on record | 3 |
| Provo, US | 3 |
| Saint John, CA | 2 |
| Tilburg, NL | 2 |
| Washington State University, Charles R. Conner Museumlocation not on record | 2 |
| ASNHClocation not on record | 2 |
| Chicago, US | 2 |
| New Haven, US | 2 |
| Geneva, CH | 2 |
| Albany, US | 2 |
| Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 1 |
| Science Museum of Minnesotalocation not on record | 1 |
| North Carolina Museum of Natural Scienceslocation not on record | 1 |
| Bonn, DE | 1 |
| Berkeley, US | 1 |
| Zacatecas, MX | 1 |
| Barcelona, ES | 1 |
| Ithaca, US | 1 |
| Philip L. Wright Zoological Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
Where the DNA of Ursus maritimus was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.