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Oddly Coloured Bears

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Anonymous

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Purple bear

It's a polar bear. And it's turned purple. I can't help harbouring some doubts about this story, but Sky News has one picture, and Ananova has another.

There's a story about something similar happening to a medicated cockatoo or parrot in a really early FT (issue 3 or something), except it turned blue.
 
I just saw this purple polar bear on TV news and it looks real enough to me :)
 
Those pictures of that bear are awfully extreme. I know medications can have side effects, but that is suspect. I keep expecting some sort of sales pitch - using the bear to sell peruvian purple potatoes!;)
 
Uh, for what it's worth

I read a factoid in the recent past (but I can't remember where) that stated that polar bear fur actually has no color pigment to it, and is really made up of hollow tubes or shafts, not strands of hair like the fur/hair of most mammals. If it's different than most animals, maybe that has something to do with it.....:confused:

...also they neglect to mention how the drug was administered. Not that I know anything about dermatitus or polar bear meds, but if this is something they spray on that changes color so you can tell if you've missed a patch...
 
purple bear

I know that Gentian Violet is used to treat yeast and fungal infections, and could certainly be picked up in the fur. I'm assuming it was given IV, since she seemed to be pretty evenly colored. And that dye is about that shade of purple. There are blue dyes like Isosulfan Blue, and Methyline Blue that are used as IV drugs in humans, in bladder surgeries to watch flow, as radioactive isotopes, they certainly turn the person blue until they are cleared. Florazine is used to check bloodflow in suspected ischemic bowel, a bright orange yellow that glows a mustard yellow under black light. Get a real vet to answer, I'm but a lowly surgical rn. For people.
Does make you want to write a poem though, "I never saw a purple bear....".
 
Re: purple bear

Joan said:
I know that Gentian Violet is used to treat yeast and fungal infections, and could certainly be picked up in the fur. I'm assuming it was given IV, since she seemed to be pretty evenly colored.

I think you might be spot on about the Gentian Violet. In the Yahoo news story, they say the medication was applied topically, which would explain the sudden colour change and the fact that you can see the bars are a bit purple in some of the pics - presumably from where it was was rubbing against them.

Mind you, it must be an interesting job getting that much purple stuff onto a polar bear...
 
I'm sure that when my aunt's horses got any cuts or grazes there was a topical purple antiseptic ointment she used.

And what's with those bars on the Ananova pic! It looks like they tried yellow first before they hit on purple as the winner. She's probably got the Cadbury's logo stencilled on her other side.
 
There is a purple anti-septic spray we used to use on the dogs and cattle for cuts or slight infections. It was called (something)-mycin (tetramycin, maybe??). Was exactly the colour of the polar bear.

I recall, perhaps in a past FT, a story about a green polar bear and the explanation was related to the hollow hair shafts - it was actually some algae growing inside the hair.
 
KittyRice said:
I'm sure that when my aunt's horses got any cuts or grazes there was a topical purple antiseptic ointment she used.

And what's with those bars on the Ananova pic! It looks like they tried yellow first before they hit on purple as the winner. She's probably got the Cadbury's logo stencilled on her other side.

:rofl: :rofl: :laughing: :rofl: :rofl:
 
Purple Poliitician

Stan Jones, a Libertarian Party candidate for the U.S. Senate turned blue from a medication he was taking. I saw him on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (U.S. Cable station, Comedy Central).

He was definitely blue, but not nearly as bright as the purple bear (but then he was a Libertarian Party candidate for the U.S. Senate, so he wouldn't be, would he?)

His website: http://www.mtlp.org/jones/

Here is the story as related by Ananova:


Ananova:

Politician turns blue from drinking 'health' solution

A US politician has turned blue from drinking a silver solution he believed would protect him from disease.

Stan Jones, Montana's Libertarian candidate for Senate, started taking colloidal silver in 1999 for fear that disruptions linked to the millennium might lead to a shortage of antibiotics.

He made his own concoction by electrically charging a couple of silver wires in a glass of water.

His skin began turning blue-grey a year ago.

"People ask me if it's permanent and if I'm dead," he said. "I tell them I'm practising for Halloween."

He does not take the supplement any longer, but the skin condition, called argyria, is permanent.

The condition is generally not serious.

Colloidal silver dietary supplements are marketed widely as an anti-bacterial agent or immune-system booster, but some consider it quackery.

Mr Jones is one of three candidates seeking to unseat Democratic Senator Max Baucus in November.


Story filed: 12:47 Thursday 3rd October 2002
 
Let's get the purple jokes out of our system

I love the Burgess poem alluded to earlier in this thread, but I love the sequel more:

I've never seen a purple cow,
I hope I never see one:
But I can tell you anyhow,
I'd sooner see than be one!

Which proved so popular Burgess wrote this:

Yes, I wrote the purple cow.
I'm sorry now I wrote it.
But I can tell you anyhow,
I'll kill you if you quote it.
 
Photo of Blue Politician

Here is the Beeb's article on the Blue politician, complete with obligatory Blues joke:

URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2297471.stm

You might think this is just a bad photo, but he really was pretty much a pale purple-blue colour on television.

I love the quotation: "People ask me if it's permanent and if I'm dead."

Well, he IS a Libertarian Party candidate for the U.S. Senate!

People watch too many Zombie movies.

Then again, several dead politicians have been elected, even though they died before the Campaign actually started (too late to remove their name from the ticket).

Note for Non-Americans:

What is a Libertarian?

1. A Republican on drugs.
2. A Liberal who thinks the Death Penalty should be applied more liberally.
3. A Conservative whose parents were on drugs in the Sixties.
4. A potential candidate for the Monster Raving Looney Party, should it ever move sharply to the Right.
 
I read an article once about a British spy with MI6 (sometimes in the 50s or 60s) who went a grey shade after taking medication to prevent some nasty tropical diseases before a foreign posting. He never went back to the normal "white" shade. He was once refused service in a restaurant in the US because he was deemed to be 'coloured'. Conversely for the rest of his professional life he was called a "colourless bureaucrat."

I will try to track down his name.
 
Green bears

Here is the link (with photo):

Polar Bears Turn Green at Singapour Zoo

Two observations on green bears:

(1) I wish bears would stick with Earth colours--turning purple (Argentina) and green (Singapour) confuses the little ones; mind you it confuses the heck out of some of us adults too--in British Columbia there is a population of brown bears called Ghost Bears that are white. They are not polar bears (which are white naturally). They are not albino bears (which would have no pigmentation and therefor would have pink/red eyes. They are brown bears that just happen to be a creamy off white colour. Wrecks havoc with logical generalizations.

(2) this may be an example of how Evolution gets started--think of the camouflage advantages of turning green in the summer and also the number of plants (animals, lichens, etc) that live symbiotically with algae. Green bears--the wave of the future. Unfortunately the polar bear is being sorely tested by global warming, so the odds of it surviving long enough to turn green outside of zoos is slim.
 
why bleach them white for?
or arnt green bears pc? :confused:
 
Algae bear and Boo-Boo

Polar bears turn green in Singapore

A perplexing sight awaits visitors to the polar bear enclosure at Singapore zoo.

The bulky Arctic beasts - usually clad in a thick coat of snow-white hair - have started turning green.

A zoo spokesman ended speculation that the animals had been spray-painted in camouflage colours.

The green colouring is apparently the work of an algae which has found a new home in the bears' translucent hair shafts.

"The harmless algae is the result of Singapore's warm and humid climate," spokesman Vincent Tan told the Associated Press news agency.

Jolly green giants

Two bears at the zoo have been afflicted by the algae so far - Sheba and her 13-year-old son, Inuka.

Sheba was treated first, the spokesman said.

Her coat was bleached with a hydrogen-peroxide solution a fortnight ago and is returning to its original colour.

Inuka has to endure the bright green splotches on its back, legs and ears until it is treated, too.

Polar-bear hairs usually appear white because they reflect the light around them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3518631.stm

24/02/04
 
Polor bears turn green in Singapore

Polar bears turn green in Singapore

A perplexing sight awaits visitors to the polar bear enclosure at Singapore zoo.

The bulky Arctic beasts - usually clad in a thick coat of snow-white hair - have started turning green.

A zoo spokesman ended speculation that the animals had been spray-painted in camouflage colours.

The green colouring is apparently the work of algae which have found a new home in the bears' translucent hair shafts.

"The harmless algae is the result of Singapore's warm and humid climate," spokesman Vincent Tan told the Associated Press news agency.

Jolly green giants

Two bears at the zoo have been afflicted by the algae so far - Sheba and her 13-year-old son, Inuka.

Sheba was treated first, the spokesman said.

Her coat was bleached with a hydrogen-peroxide solution a fortnight ago and is returning to its original colour.

Inuka has to endure the bright green splotches on its back, legs and ears until it is treated, too.

Polar-bear hairs usually appear white because they reflect the light around them.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3518631.stm

Published: 2004/02/24 20:43:49 GMT

© BBC MMIV
 
I read this story before. I find it really sad. :(
Polar bears are one animal who shouldn't be in zoos as it is. They lead a nomadic lifestyle. :(
 
Seeing many animals locked up like this is quite sad.

Still, there's a polar bear in San Francisco Zoo who's gone brown. There's a card explaining it - she's been allowed into the adjacent enclosure which has lots of plants and dirt. As a result, she's a bit on the muddy side.
 
Spirit Bear of British Columbia

Probably very few people in Europe heard about the Spirit (Kermode) Bear - one of the most rare and beautiful bears in the world. Found nowhere else on earth, these white-coloured sub-species of the black bear are at risk from logging and habitat fragmentation. They are found only on Canada’s west coast.

The number of white spirit bears existing in the world is believed to number fewer than four hundred, with the highest concentration occurring around Princess Royal and Gribbell Islands on B.C.’s north central coast. It is believed that one out of every ten black bears in these areas are white, as they carry a unique, double recessive gene.

http://www.savespiritbear.org/project/spiritbear/about_bear/index.html
 
Rare white Grizzly sighted in Canadian Rockies

Experts say the colouring is the result of a recessive gene in the cub – not albinism.

“It’s definitely a pretty unique animal,” said Seth Cherry, a wildlife ecologist with Parks Canada. “I’ve never seen a white bear personally.”

Local wildlife officials have known about the white grizzly since 2017, but Clarkson’s mobile phone video of the bear, which went viral, marks the first time the public has caught a glimpse of the ghostly predator.
Filmed by remote camera with it's sibling.

A young white grizzly bear captured by a remote camera in Canada’s Rocky Mountains.
 
Wow, it's like a polar bear in a grizzly bear shape.
 
I thought this thread meant a different kind of oddly coloured bears...

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Those Gummi Bears are huge!
All I need is some giant sweets as armour, and I'm safe.
 
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