This morning’s random object was a big brown bear with a fish hanging out of its mouth. We talked through the bear family tree while I sketched the essence of fur.
Sketch & Coffee, Live! is streamed daily at 5:30am, Texas Time, at the YouTubes
About fifty million years ago there was a little proto-bear, Dormaalocyon, then fifteen million years ago the bear-apparent, Ursavus, and around five million years ago came Ursus, the first real bear. Fifty thousand years ago brown bears crossed into the Americas, and right behind them came black and polar bears.
Brown and black bears have completely speciated. They don’t interbreed, don’t recognize each other’s scent or dance, and their rare offspring in captivity are sterile. But brown and polar bears are a different story. They’re still close enough to have fertile cubs where their ranges overlap. And because both North American brown bears and those of Eurasia interbreed with polar bears, the gene flow is constant and stops the bears from fully splitting into new species. Kodiaks, though, are starting down that road. They’ve been isolated on their islands for about 12,000 years, and they’ve grown into 12-foot-tall, 1,200-pound giants, much larger than their mainland cousins.
We talked about climate change and how the ice is moving north faster than the tundra is following it, and the two bear habitats are sliding apart. If that separation becomes complete, brown and polar bears will finally speciate, and the easy gene flow between continents will stop. Nature does this over and over, reshaping what survives and what doesn’t. Bears prove that life adapts whether it likes it or not.
They were nearly wiped out a century ago, then saved by the same stories that made them seem cuddly. Gentle Ben, Baloo, and Brother Bear taught people to care, and that care brought them back to more than 200,000 worldwide. Toward the end, I reminded everyone that bears might look friend-shaped, but they aren’t your friends. They are top predators, and you are the right size for a meal. Thankfully, they don’t hunt humans, but they will hunt your picnic basket. Brown bears average around 800 pounds, about the weight of a baby grand piano or a bluefin tuna. The difference, of course, is that you can tune a piano, but you can’t tune a fish.
Click here to watch this episode of Sketch & Coffee
Also, if you, or a teacher friend, would like a 20-30 minute lesson plan, feel free to download and share this one:
Leave a Reply