So in celebration of one of the greatest ideas ever put forth Discovery ran a show called Evolutions on 3 animals and how they've evolved into the modern Turkey, Whale, and Bear. They showed how a wolf sized land animal turned into the modern whale, etc.
Anyways, the polar bear was descended from the brown/grizzly bear because it got separated by ice and became genetically isolated from the brown bear. It grew a biggers stomach, better nose, clear outer coat etc.
With the shrinking ice, the Polar bears have now come in contact with there cousins the brown bear. Looks like they've started actually mating...enter the GROLAR Bear. Some scientists are thinking this could be a new species of bear and that we're actually witnessing evolution in action. The fact that the polar bear became isolated only a couple thousand years (IIRC) and evolved this fast and are that adaptable is astounding.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...rid-photo.html
I'm just a simple engineer, but this is absolutely fascinating to me. I just caught the end of the show (PVR'd) so I will have to watch it again. Anyone else heard about this bear??