Kermode bear

Kermode bear
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Ursidae
Genus:	Ursus
Species:	U. americanus
Subspecies:	U. a. kermodei
Trinomial name
Ursus americanus kermodei Hornaday, 1905

The Kermode bear (Ursus americanus kermodei), also known as the "spirit bear" (particularly in British Columbia), is a rare subspecies of the American black bear living in the Central and North Coast regions of British Columbia, Canada. It is the official provincial mammal of British Columbia. It is noted for about one-tenth of its population having white or cream-coloured coats like polar bears. This colour is due to a double recessive gene unique in the subspecies. They are not albinos and not any more related to polar bears or the "blonde" brown bears of Alaska's "ABC Islands" than other members of their species. Sometimes, a mother black bear can have a white cub.

Spirit bears hold a prominent place in the oral traditions of the indigenous peoples of the area. They have also been featured in a National Geographic documentary. Scientists have found that black bears are not as effective at catching fish as white bears, as the white bears are less visible from the perspective of the fish. At night, the two colours of bears have similar success rates at catching fish, such as salmon, but during the day, the white bears are 30 percent more effective.

The Kermode bear was named after Frank Kermode, former director of the Royal B.C. Museum, who researched the subspecies and was a colleague of William Hornaday, the zoologist who described it. A common mispronunciation of Kermode as /kərˈmoʊdiː/ kər-MOH-dee differs from the actual pronunciation of the Kermode surname, which originates on the Isle of Man and is properly pronounced /ˈkɜːrmoʊd/ KUR-mohd, which is the usual way to pronounce Kermode bear. In the Isle of Man the name is pronounced /kərˈmoʊd/ kur-MOHD.

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Wikipedia