That's because polar bear fur is transparent and hollow.When light strikes the outer fur some of it is absorbed while the rest is scattered away. The result? The fur can appear as different colors ...

A polar bear's insulating fur shown under infrared heat imaging taken with a FLIR E75 24o (FLIR Systems OÜ, Estonia) Svalbard Archipelago, Norway.

However, “It's not clear yet how unique this is to polar bears,” Whiteman ... applying them to different materials to determine if he can mimic the anti-ice properties of polar bear fur. While the ...

Polar bears don’t have to worry about skipping a wash day. The sebum, or natural oil, on the mammals’ fur helps them survive the harsh Arctic weather by making it hard for ice to stick to them ...