A sleeping Kermode bear in British Columbia, Canada
© John E Marriott/SuperStoc
The big snooze. Spirit of the rainforest
The Kermode bear, often called the ‘spirit bear’ due to its ghostly appearance, isn’t albino. It’s a subspecies of black bear, born with pigmented skin and eyes, but a genetic mutation produces no pigment in the fur. Two black bears with dark fur can produce a Kermode cub, while a Kermode parent doesn’t guarantee a Kermode offspring. Spirit bears haunt the moss-covered territory of the Great Bear Rainforest, which is where our homepage photo was taken, but others have been documented in the greater coastal region of British Columbia (Canada). Nature, your lovely weirdness wins again.
Related Images
Elephants at Kapama Private Game Reserve in South Africa
Tiger at the Bandhavgarh National Park, Madhya Pradesh
Male African lion and cub in Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in southern Africa
African bush elephants at Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya
Bear cubs playing by a lake
Bengal tiger watching deer in Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh
Pale-throated sloth perched in a tree on Sloth Island, Essequibo River, Guyana
Meerkats in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana
Bing Today Images
Bad River in Copper Falls State Park, Wisconsin
Nov 17, 2023
