Polar bears' "mitochondrial Eve," the female from whom all of today's polar bears are descended, was not a polar bear at all.
On July 7 researchers published their findings about the species history of polar bears in Current Biology . One of their discoveries was that the mitochondrial DNA in the cells of every polar bear's body originated in the cells of a female brown bear that lived in the neighborhood of Britain and Ireland during the era when Neandertals' numbers began go dwindle. [More]