Polar Bears - Data, Pictures and Videos

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http://www.livescience.com/polar-bears-b...lders.html

Polar bears bash walrus skulls with boulders and ice blocks, study suggests.

Picture a polar bear stalking an unsuspecting walrus in the frozen Arctic: The predator slowly inches closer, camouflaged by ice and snow, until it's close enough to pounce. And then it delivers the killing blow — by bopping the walrus on the head with a large rock.

That might sound like something you'd see in a cartoon, rather than in nature. But for centuries, Inuit people in the Arctic have shared such stories with non-Native explorers and naturalists, describing polar bears killing or stunning prey with stones and chunks of ice that the bears grasp in their paws (or throw off cliffs onto animals at the bottom, according to a memorable 19th-century engraving).

A new study looked at Inuit anecdotes describing this behavior — "from a diversity of locations and over a long period of time" — and found they were so widespread and consistent that they suggested that in rare cases, polar bears likely wield such objects as weapons. However, until scientific researchers actually catch the Arctic bears in the act of bludgeoning walruses, it's hard to say for sure. Reply