Tibetan blue bear

For the subspecies of American black bear also known as the "blue bear", see glacier bear.

Tibetan blue bear
Tibetan blue bear at the Oji Zoo, Japan.
CITES Appendix II (CITES)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Ursidae
Genus: Ursus
Species:
U. arctos
Subspecies:
U. a. pruinosus
Trinomial name
Ursus arctos pruinosus
Blyth, 1854

The Tibetan brown bear (Ursus arctos pruinosus), also known as Tibetan blue bear,[2] is a subspecies of the brown bear (Ursus arctos) in the eastern Tibetan Plateau.

One of the rarest subspecies of bear in the world, the blue bear is rarely sighted in the wild. First classified in 1851, it was once known in the Western world only through a small number of fur and bone samples. However, the 2021 French documentary The Velvet Queen (La Panthère des Neiges) did manage to capture extensive footage of the reclusive animal.[3]

  1. ^ "CITES Appendices I, II and III" (PDF). CITES. 2023. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  2. ^ Lydekker P.Z.S. (1897). "The Blue Bear of Tibet". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. 1897: 412.
  3. ^ Amiguet, Marie and Munier, Vincent (July 13, 2021). La panthère des neiges [The Velvet Queen] (Motion Picture) (in French).