Polar Bears are a relatively new Bear species

Polar Bears are relatively new arrivals on the evolutionary scene. After studying the DNA from a 120,000 year old Polar Bear, researchers have discovered that Polar Bears split from Brown Bears around 150,000 years ago. That was in the late Pleistocene just before the end of the ice age.

The species that was too become polar bears may have been adapting too the opening of new habitats and food sources in the interglacial period.