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Polar bear meets grizzly bear. They hit it off and have babies. Enter the grolar bears. Or pizzly bears, as some like to call them. It might sound like a BS made-up story, or something from Happy Feet, but it’s actually true.
It turns out that polar bears have been migrating south in recent years because of climate change and melting ice. There are only a handful of these fluffy giants who, according to researchers, all have the same historical mom but different dads.
In an age of fake news, you’d be forgiven for questioning some of the facts that pop up on your feed. But there are a surprising number that sound like cr*p but are totally legit. Someone once asked, "What's a fact that sounds fake but is actually legit?" and thousands of answers came rolling in. The list reads like an encyclopedia that never made it to print.
Bored Panda has put together the best bullsh*t-sounding facts for you to scroll through ahead of your next trivia night or blind date. Some are so interesting or strange that they might have you Googling yourself down a rabbit hole of endless fact-checking.
And if you're still stuck on the grolar/pizzly bear tale, we've gathered some more information about these elusive creatures. You'll find that between the images.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
The Giza pyramids were built when Mammoths still roamed the earth.
WindySwede 2 months ago
Coming from the vaccine conspiracy thread, this is now a completely different mindset here.. 😋
There's no doubt we're living in a pandemic of fake news. Lies masquerading as the truth, out to get us hook, line and sinker. But among the sea of bullsh*t, there's legitimate information proving that fact is indeed sometimes stranger than fiction.
The little grolar bears, for example, might sound like made-up characters from a Disney movie. Especially since polar bears and grizzly bears come from, well, polar environments.
Polar bears are larger than their grizzly counterparts. They're native to the Arctic and are quite used to freezing temperatures. "[They] are well-adapted for life on ice with their thick, water-repellent fur and large, slightly webbed paws, which help them swim and navigate icy waters. Their diet mainly consists of seals, making them a top predator in their icy habitat," explains howstuffworks.com.
Grizzly bears, on the other hand, are found primarily in North America. "Known for their muscular shoulders and long claws, they are adept at digging and foraging, often feeding on roots, berries and fish," the site continues. "Unlike polar bears, they prefer forested or mountainous regions and hibernate during the winter."
So how on earth did these two not only manage to find each other, but to go on and make little grolar bear (or pizzly) babies?
RELATED:
#2
Wearing a seatbelt increases your chance of getting cancer.
Because you don't die in a car wreck first.
Dragons Exist 2 months ago
Falling into the Grand Canyon also reduces your risk of getting cancer
#3
There are more libraries in the US than McDonald's.
Lost Panda 2 months ago
This is a good thing! Now, if only more people would use libraries versus McDonald's...
The first confirmed grolar bear was identified in 2006 in the Canadian Arctic. This after a hunter called Jim Martell came across what appeared to be a polar bear - but also not quite. The animal seemed to also have some physical traits of a grizzly.
It turned out to be a hybrid of the two. In other words, the product of mating between a polar bear and a grizzly bear.
"This crossbreeding occurs when the habitats of polar and grizzly bears overlap, usually due to polar bears being pushed southward as sea ice melts, bringing them into contact with grizzlies," explains howstuffworks.com.
#4
The best thing for you to do if you're stung by a tarantula hawk wasp is to lie down and scream.
EDIT: Laying down prevents you from falling over/hurting yourself when you're in the throes of pain, and the screaming helps cope with the pain level. Nothing else is really going to help you.
Yrral Spavit 2 months ago
Swearing also helps https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/profanity-can-sometimes-be-the-best-medicine-increasing-pain-tolerance-33-percent/
#5
There is a point in the Pacific Ocean named "Point Nemo" which is the furthest point from land. In fact, it is so far from land, the nearest humans are often astronauts in the International Space Station when it passes overhead. The ISS orbits the Earth at a maximum of **416 km** while the nearest inhabited landmass to Point Nemo is **over 2,700 km away**.
Michael Largey 2 months ago
Some days I want to pack up and move there. (But only on days with a "y" in them.)
#6
Female dragonflies fake being dead in order to stop unwanted male advances.
A 2024 research report analyzed 371 historic polar bear and 440 historic grizzly bear samples from across Canada, Alaska, and Greenland. The researchers confirmed that there are only eight hybrids, or grolar bears.
"The only confirmed hybrid bears in the sample were already known to science and were all from a female polar bear born in 1989 who mated with two grizzly bears on multiple occasions and producing four offspring," the Guardian elaborated. "One of her cubs also eventually mated with the same grizzly males, producing five more 'grolars.'"
#7
The continent with the highest average education level is Antarctica.
#8
Polar Bears have recently been migrating further south and mating with Grizzly bears, creating a hybrid called Grolar Bears. They were separated for so long they took on different phenotypes, but they aren’t distant enough to no longer be able to mate and create viable offspring.
#9
Wasabi is really hard to find, and most times the “wasabi” you’re eating is horse radish with food coloring.
“Polar bears evolved from grizzly bears several hundred thousand years ago and although gene flow has occurred between the two species in the past, it appears that recent hybridization is restricted to a small group of polar bears and brown bears in the western Arctic,” said the report's co-author Evan Richardson, who is a Research Scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada.
#10
Oxford University was founded before the Aztec Empire.
Gebidozo 2 months ago
Well, yeah. Oxford University is 1096, High Middle Ages. Aztec Empire is 15th century, late medieval. I don’t know why some people believe that the civilization of those Nahuatl-speaking invaders from the north is ancient. They probably confuse them with the Olmecs or the Mayans.
When polar bears and grizzly bears get together, their offspring should inherit traits that make them fairly adaptable in terms of where they live. But it appears this isn't the case.
According to Richardson, grolar bears are unlikely to be better adapted to the changing Arctic environment. The expert says that these hybrids may not be well-suited for life on either land or sea, making them less effective than polar or brown bears.
#13
Canada has a smaller population than California.
#15
Cows have best friends and they get stressed out when they are separated.
Tabitha 2 months ago
Sometimes those best friends aren’t cows. I live close to an organic dairy that has a little store and sells milk, cheese, ice cream, etc. I remember being in the store right after they had just expanded and purchased some new cows. BTW, all there animals are free-roaming, and can come and go from their barns at will. The owners told me it reduces the cows’ stress levels which makes more and better milk. I looked out the back window, and saw one cow making tracks toward the horse barn. The owner told me that is one of their new cows. They had to buy a horse from the farm where they bought the cows, because that one cow had bonded so closely with one of their horses, that she wouldn’t do well being separated from them. I think that’s lovely of the farm owners to do that. That cow was heading over to her BFF’s barn to hang out, because her BFF is ALSO living at their new place.
Grolar bears face unique challenges, notes howstuffworks.com. "They are not as specialized as either parent species; polar bears are expert hunters of seals, and grizzlies have perfected foraging and hunting on land. As such, grolar bears must adapt to a variety of food sources and environments to survive," explains the site.
Grolars have been spotted foraging for food on land, eating plants and small mammals. And researchers believe they might have inherited the grizzly's more adaptable diet.
#16
The entire state of Wyoming only has 2 escalators.
Michael Largey 2 months ago
It has more sheep than people, and you know how hard it is to get a sheep to ride an escalator.
#17
Having six fingers is actually a dominant trait, but the genes for it are so incredibly rare that pretty much no one has it.
"The long-term viability of grolar bears in the wild is still unknown," adds howstuffworks.com. "As climate change continues to reshape the Arctic and the habitats of polar and grizzly bears overlap even more, these hybrid bears could become more common."
A separate study published in 2024 warned that changing sea ice conditions are making it harder for polar bears to survive in their existing habitats. It warned that one community of polar bears in Hudson Bay could die out within a decade if the thinning sea ice can no longer bear their weight.
But after the grolar bear study found only eight hybrids in the wild, many conservationists who were worried about the future of polar bears as a distinct species received a boost of optimism.
“This report underscores that hybridization is remarkably rare, and that hybridization is not an adaptive capability of polar bears,” said Geoff York, senior director of research and policy at Polar Bears International.
#23
Komodo dragons can reproduce asexually.
Edit: when humans fall, the Komodos shall rise.
#25
More people die from vending machine than sharks attack.
Ian Webling 2 months ago
Based on the way this is phrased, the only reasonable response is: How often do sharks attack vending machines?
#26
The founder of match.com, Gary Kremen, lost his girlfriend to a man she met on match.com.
#27
Harvard University is over 100 years older than the United States.
#28
Polar bears have black skin and transparent hairs.
Bored Seagull 2 months ago
Only the guard hairs of the polar bear coat are transparent, the underfur itself is actually white.
#29
Ice cream sales are correlated with homicides.
Because heat makes people buy ice cream as well as k**l each other.
#30
Less time separates the existence of humans and the tyrannosaurus rex than the t-rex and the stegosaurus.
David Paterson 2 months ago
The first true mammals and true birds were (almost) contemporaries of stegosaurus.
#31
If you could double your money every day, and started with a penny, you would be a millionaire in less than a month.
#32
A polar bear’s liver contains enough vitamin A to [unalive] a human if eaten.
Michael Largey 2 months ago
A polar bear can easily k**l you without any assistance from its liver.
#34
1 million seconds=11 days, 1 billion seconds=31 years.
#35
A lemon floats and a lime sinks in water. They may seem the same, but limes are denser than water whereas lemons have a similar density to water.
#36
There was no grass in dinosaur times. It just seems so strange because it's so ubiquitous today.
Michael Largey 2 months ago
But I'm pretty sure that the pterodactyls had some dynamite peyote.
#37
There are hot singles in the area dying to meet you.
#38
In Arizona its illegal to let your donkey sleep in a bathtub but it can sit in it.
It's also illegal to have more than 3 unrelated women live in a house together or its classified as a brothel.
#39
Ada Lovelace designed the first computer algorithm roughly 100 years before the first computer.
Zig Zag Wanderer 2 months ago (edited)
And there's a programming language named in her honour. Although there was a computer for her to program, it was made by Charles Babbage. It just wasn't an electric one. Needs more investigation before publishing that 'fact'.
#40
Your finger can feel microscopic things.
#42
More Vietnam vets [took their own lives] then died in the war.
#44
There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on Earth and there are more atoms in a grain of sand than there are stars in the universe.
#46
That Netflix was founded a year before Google.
#47
The majority of people have an above average number of arms.
#48
The state of Maine has more Black Bears than Black People.
Edit:
15,000 Black People.
30,000 Black Bears.
#49
Water is a bad conductor of electricity.
*Pure* water absolutely is an insulator. Water is also really good at containing things that are good conductors of electricity therefore most water, non-pure water, is a good conductor of electricity.
#50
This one gets passed around commonly, but it's pretty amazing if you haven't seen it before. Suppose you had a sheet of paper that was large enough so that you could keep folding it in half over and over. The sheet is obviously very large in area, but it's just a humble 0.0039 inches in thickness. After about 7 folds, you're just around the thickness of a regular notebook. After 10, it'll be as thick as your hand. Nothing impressive. After 23 folds, you'd have a folded paper tower that's just about a km tall. Now we start to get interesting. After 30 folds, congrats!; you're in space! Add another 12 folds to take you to 42, and you're ready to walk on the moon. After 51, you can touch the sun. With 81 folds, your paper tower is as almost as thick as the Andromeda Galaxy (approx. 141,000 light years). 90 folds will get that paper tower as thick as the Virgo Supercluster (contains about 100 galaxies). After 103 folds, you've broken free of the observable universe (approx 93 billion light years in diameter). Exponential growth is a hell of a thing!
Never Snarky 2 months ago
But a sheet of paper can’t be folded in half more than seven times. Try it.
#52
Most people have already met psychopaths and sociopaths in their lives, without really knowing which ones are crazy.
#53
The lighter the roast of coffee, the more caffeine it has. Counterintuitive, but true.
#54
John F. Kennedy, Aldus Huxley, and C. S. Lewis all died on November 22, 1963.
Tabitha 2 months ago (edited)
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died within hours of each other on July 4, 1826, exactly fifty years after the Declaration was ratified by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Though Jefferson died first, Adams, who wouldn’t have known that, said these last words, “Thomas Jefferson lives”.
#55
There is more fresh water contained in Loch Ness than in all rivers and lakes in England and Wales combined.
#56
If you were to encase the Eiffel Tower in a cylinder so it just fit (Just tall enough to pass the top and just wide enough to fit the base) the air inside that cylinder would weigh more than the tower itself.
#57
Cats lose almost as much fluid in the saliva while grooming themselves as they do through urination.
#58
At its furthest away point, you can fit every planet in our solar system between Earth and the Moon.
#59
If you have 10 dollars in your pocket and no debts , you have more wealth than 25% of Americans.
Michael Largey 2 months ago
So people with no debts - no mortgage, car payment, credit card balance, etc - are better off than the poorest quarter of Americans? Wow.
#63
That if you knock your tooth out and put it back in the socket it will grow roots back and save the tooth.
Nicole Weymann 2 months ago
That MAY happen if you're very lucky - and very meticulous. Otherwise you're more likely to contaminate that open wound and seal the contaminants in to fester, I would guess.
#64
27 US states have land that is farther north than the southern most point of Canada, with 13 of them being completely north of the southern most point of Canada. The most surprising is that California has land north of Canada, but New Jersey does not.
#66
The United States in World War 2 created a bomb that used bats. The bats would be carrying small incendiary charges and would be released from the bomb in mid air, causing them to fly and scatter to different buildings in the area. The charges would then detonate and set all the buildings on fire. It was tested and proven to be very effective.
This was actually APPROVED by the government for development and production, and then cancelled because of the atomic bomb. The idea was thought up by a Dentist who was friends with Eleanor Roosevelt.
#67
Trees have such intricate root systems that a tree low on one particular type of nutrient will acquire some from his neighbors and make up for it later. This is especially prevalent during the winter months when some trees don't have leaves and so need extra help from their evergreen friends.
#68
John Tyler, born 1790 has 2 living grandchildren as of 2017. Not great grandchildren, just regular grandkids. I think he was in his 80s when he had a son and his son was also pretty old when he had these 2.
Michael Largey 2 months ago
When the Civil War broke out, he joined the Confederate congress. Imagine - a presidential traitor leading sedition.
#69
The world's largest desert isn't the Sahara. It's the entire continent of Antarctica
-------Deserts aren't measured by grains of sand or amount of camels; it's all about precipitation, and Antarctica takes the cake. The roughly 5.5 million square mile continent only gets about eight inches of rain a year.
#70
There have been over 2000 nuclear bomb detonations.
#71
Scale-wise, a speck of dust is halfway between a subatomic particle and the Earth.
#72
The US Marshals are still looking for the three guys who escaped from Alcatraz in 1962. They just disappeared off the face of the earth, and no bodies washed up in San Francisco Bay or anywhere nearby, despite the official investigation suggesting they drowned before they could reach dry land. The investigation into their escape can’t officially end until they reach their 100th birthday.
#73
France lends power to Britain so they don't get power surges from boiling the kettle, which happened several times in 2013 after a tv programme ended.
Ace 2 months ago
Not "lend". Electrical distribution networks exist across Europe. Individual power companies buy from producers in half-hour blocks and the earlier they can buy them the lower the price will be. I worked on forecasting systems doing this in the 1990s, producing nice pretty graphics of a whole yer (or more) broken down into such blocks on the page. Yes, some events like football cup finals, and importantly the timing of the intervals, were known about a long way in advance and would appear on the graphs as distinct red ares.
#75
There are more whitetail deer in the U.S now than at the time of first European contact.
David Paterson 2 months ago
Come to think of it, this would be true of grey kangaroos in Australia, too.
#78
The brother of John Wilkes Booth saved Abraham
Lincoln's son from being hit by a train without knowing who it was he saved.
#79
Cosmic rays from outer space cause glitches in your electronics. In some electronics, cosmic rays are the primary source of soft errors. Cosmic rays are one of the main reasons that servers and high reliability computers use error correcting RAM.
Zig Zag Wanderer 2 months ago
Indeed. In space, where there's no protection of Earth’s magnetic field, we tend to use 3 identical computers. If one is different, we trust the other 2.
#80
You can live for the entire rest of your life without breathing.
#81
The guy that made Family Guy was supposed to get on the plane that crashed into one of the towers. But he was late.
#82
There are more trees on Earth than there are ~~in space~~ stars in the Millky Way galaxy.
#83
If you shuffle a standard deck of cards it is basically a mathematical impossibility that anyone has ever shuffled a deck of cards into the same order you just have.
Janissary35680 2 months ago
The probablility of any given order is ~ 1/8.0658151709 * 10^67 (more or less exactly). Since that is greater than 0, it's not a mathematical impossiblity.
#84
Speaking of sounds, air is a terrible transmitter of sound. Because we hear through the air we naturally think it’s very effective, but gases are terrible at transmitting vibrations. Air gaps are actually a very common and effective tool in soundproofing as well.
#85
When you get a kidney transplant, they usually just leave your original kidneys in your body and put the 3rd kidney in your pelvis.
#86
From the time it was discovered to the time it was stripped of its status as a planet, Pluto hadn't made a full trip around the Sun.
#87
It is possible for a professional mimic to forget his voice.
Zig Zag Wanderer 2 months ago (edited)
Hey, I've forgotten my own accent. After three months talking only French, the first time I spoke English, I spoke it with a French accent!
#88
Pirates wore eye patches so that when they went below deck they could remove it and have better vision in the dark.
Jane Doe-Doe 2 months ago
And sailors wore gold earrings so they could pay for a coffin if they died away from home ( I don’t know if that is true or not)
#89
**Took a bunch of the good ones from this post the last time it surfaced a few months ago. Enjoy! **
- Australia once lost a prime minister. As in straight up couldn't find him. They have yet to find him.
- The Champawat Tiger was a female Bengal tiger responsible for an estimated 430 deaths in Nepal and India.
- There was once a war between Honduras and El Salvador started by a soccer game.
- It rains diamonds on Saturn, and Jupiter.
- When I tell people that Bob Marley's father was white, oh the nonbelievers!
- People completely shave orangutans and force them into p**********n.
- The Mongolian Navy consists of a tugboat with a seven man crew. Only one of them can swim.
- The Who's first drummer, Keith Moon, was the godfather of The Who's current drummer, Zak Starkey, who is also the son of Ringo Starr, The Beatles' drummer.
- More people are killed each year by vending machines than by sharks.
- Warner Bros was founded a few months before the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Even crazier is that Nintendo was founded 34 YEARS before it fell.
- Humans share 50% of their DNA with... bananas.
- France has more time zones than USA or Russia. (For those wondering, it's because France owns a lot of island nations on Earth.)
- Maine is the closest US state to Africa.
- The current United States flag was designed by then 17 years old Robert G. Heft, as part of a school project. He received a grade of B-
- Fortune cookies were invented in America and are seen in China as an american symbol.
- Gravity propagates at the speed of light. So if the sun were to suddenly disappear, we would continue orbiting for 8 minutes.
- If there're 23 people in a room, there's a 50% chance two of them share a birthday. edit: google "birthday paradox" for more information.
- Blue whales don't have enough blood in their body to get an erection, they would pass out from lack of blood in the brain. To compensate - female blue whale vaginas are the size of an average living room. edit: I'm getting lots of questions about this one. I believe that they just ejaculate while semi-flaccid so it's not very accurate and that's why the large vaginas are there. They c*m over 5 gallons at a time though, now you know.
- There are more ways to shuffle a deck of cards then there are atoms in our solar system.
- Cleopatra lived closer in time to the moon landing than she did to the building of the Great Pyramids.
- There are more public libraries than McDonald’s in the US.
- 7 out of 8 battle deaths in WWII were between the Russians and the Germans - this includes the entire world at the time.
- The grandsons of tenth US President John Tyler (born 1790) are still living.
- A day on venus is longer than a year on venus.
- Hippo milk is pink. That's right, pink.
- Your body is creating and killing 15 million red blood cells per second.
- Shaq only ever hit one 3 point shot.
- Photographs taken of the Eiffel Tower at night are subject to copyright law.
- Most toilets flush in E Flat.
- Reno is west of L.A. Also, six US Capitals are west of L.A.
#90
If you melted down the Eiffel Tower, the pool of iron would be less than 3 inches deep (in a square area the same dimensions as the tower base).
#91
Every day there are 6 YEARS worth of video being published on YouTube. (Heard in a guest lecture at my University).
#92
The introduction of boxing gloves lead to a steep increase in concussions.
Ian Webling 2 months ago
Actually, bare-knuckle boxers used fewer shots to the head. Heads are hard and bones in the hand are brittle. A similar thing happened in WW1 when helmets became mandatory. The number of head wounds increased because, before, most people hit in the head died and were thus not classified as having head wounds. Helmets allowed more to survive, therefore more head wounds.
#93
An avocado is a berry, a strawberry is not.
#94
The 15-20 largest container ships in the world create more pollution than all of the cars in the world.
#95
Googolplex is such an absurdity huge number that if you wanted to try and write it out you’d need a tool that could imprint on subatomic particles; Also there aren’t enough subatomic particles in the universe to even write the number.
#96
The entire captain planet cartoon was a all star cast. It had Whoppie Goldberg, Jeff Goldblum, Tim Curry, Meg Ryan.
#97
If you have 23 people in a room, there is a *50% chance* that 2 of them have the same birthday.
#99
Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
#100
There used to be a flying reptile that was as tall as a giraffe.
#101
An octopus has three hearts.
#102
The major engagements of the American Civil War started in a man's backyard and ended in that same man's parlor room.
#103
Crocodiles are more closely related to birds, than they are to lizards.
Sounds like b******t, but it's true!
#104
We have better maps of the surface of Mars than our own ocean floor. Scary, but true.
Daniel Atkins 2 months ago (edited)
Well the surface of Mars is easier to see not too many going deep into the ocean.
#105
There were people who were killed by the Atom bombs who were born during Japan's Samurai era.
Japans military went from swords, spears and bows to planes, tanks and aircraft carriers in a single humans lifetime. And people say Civilization is unrealistic.
Zig Zag Wanderer 2 months ago
And we went from powered flight to the moon in one person's lifetime
#107
You probably have an above-average number of arms.
Michael Largey 2 months ago
This has been mentioned an above-average number of times in this topic.
#108
If you shrunk the Earth down to the size of a billiard ball, the Earth would actually be smoother than a billiard ball.
#109
If you fire a gun and drop a bullet at the same time from the same height they will hit the ground at the same time.
#110
If an atom was the size of our solar system, a neutrino would be the size of a golfball, to scale.
#111
The CEO of Food for the Poor, the largest international relief and development organization, is named Robin Mahfood.
#112
HD Video has been around for over 20 years, only became popular with consumers in the past 5/10 years.
Carl Roberts 2 months ago (edited)
"Only became popular in the past 5 to 10 years". That's complete baloney. Widescreen HD tv's were in widespread use by 2005. Most tv series were produced in HD by the early 2000's. The U.S transitioned to full HD over the air broadcasts in 2009. Blu-ray was introduced globally in 2006, and gained widespread adoption within 2 years.
#113
IPv6 would allow every atom on the surface of the earth to have its own IP address, with enough spare to do Earth 100+ times.
#114
Cleopatra was born ~2500 years later than the creation of the pyramids (2686 b.c.).
That places her time closer to Harambe's (1999) than the time of pyramids.
#115
The New York City metro area has a greater population than all of New York State.
Michael Largey 2 months ago
Mathematically impossible since the population of "all of New York State" includes the population of the New York metro area.
#116
The terminal velocity of a cat is non-lethal.
Becky Samuel 2 months ago
Untrue and based on a small and badly planned survey from decades ago.
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David Paterson 2 months ago
The planet in the solar system with the hottest surface is Saturn - because it has the thickest atmosphere.
David Paterson 2 months ago
The planet in the solar system with the hottest surface is Saturn - because it has the thickest atmosphere.
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