If you thought the mule was the only hybrid animal roaming around unfettered, well, you’d be mistaken. BBC News reports that hybrid combinations of polar and grizzly bears are peppering zoos across the world and, in one case, even occurring in the wild. Germany’s Osnabruck Zoo is the site of a study of the mysterious mammals (resulting when the two species, housed close together, engaged in some unauthorized hanky panky). Dr. Ute Magiera, conservation coordinator of the facility, says this particular hybrid is very rare, with only 17 confirmed animals in existence.

The first Osnabruck “grolar bears” were the children of a female brown bear and, evidently, a male polar bear. Born in 2004, the cubs were the first hybrids to show up after nearly 25 years of the two species’ cohabitating. Researchers observed the cubs and found that the hybrids are a bit smaller than the polar bears, have long necks like their polar parents, but have the shoulder humps typical of brown bears. Other features include thicker heads (like grizzlies), visible tails (like polars), and blended feet — partially insulated with hair like the polar bear, partly long-toed like the grizzly.

BBC News reports that the most interesting feature of the hybrid is the hair. Polar bears typically have hollow hair shafts while brown bears have more solid hair shafts. The hybrids have a blended coat that varies depending on the bear’s sex and body part. Males had solid-haired paws with hollow-haired backs while females had largely hollow hairs. When it comes to behavior, the bears seem to act more like polar bears, using their front paws to stamp in the ways polar bears break through ice and tossing toys around with their teeth the way polar bears rattle their prey.

So why should we care so much about the minutia of a hybrid born of two species whose habitats rarely overlap in the wild? BBC News suggests that climate change is shifting the locale of the polar bear, drawing the bears more inland. These shifts might happen too quickly for the species to adapt, but if the bears are able to successfully mate with other species, these hybrids could have interesting implications for adaptation and evolution.

Life will find a way -O ya baby!

Hunters from the village of Ulukhaktok, N.W.T. knew there was something different about the polar bear they were stalking but couldn’t put their finger on it.   It was far more aggressive than anything they were used to. They even called off the dog for fear the large white mammal would kill it.   On closer inspection after it was shot and killed, it turned out not to be an ordinary polar bear but one that was a cross between a polar bear and a grizzly, unofficial known as “grolar bear” and “pizzly.”

“The first hybrid we had ever seen around here a few years ago was pretty nasty. They (hunters) usually stalk the polar bear using a dog but this bear was so aggressive they couldn’t use a dog on them. It was too dangerous,” Robert Kuptana, who lives in the western Arctic hamlet of about 400 people on Victoria Island, told the Toronto StarFriday.

Over the years as grizzly bears have wandered further north following the Caribou herd, the hybrid variety has become more common, the 69-year-old Kuptana said, adding that just 10 days ago, a hunter from the village, Pat Ekpakohak, and his two grandchildren killed three of them.   “One is pure white, one is partly dark and the other is fairly dark brown and the top part is white,” said Kuptana, who took a picture of the skins. Polar bear and grizzly habitat overlaps in the western Canadian Arctic around the Beaufort Sea. Grizzlies are known to occasionally to go out on the ice in the spring to feed on seals killed by polar bears, according to the Canadian Wildlife Service.

A DNA test conducted by the Wildlife Genetics International in British Columbia on a bear shot and killed by an American hunter in 2006 confirmed it was a hybrid, making it the first documented case in the wild.   Ian Stirling, a research scientist and polar bear expert with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Edmonton, said in an interview with National Geographic that the hybrid was “definitely not” a sign of climate change.   Andrew Derocher, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta, is in Ulukhaktok, where he is doing polar bear research and saw the skins from the three hybrids.   He told the Star, “It seems to me they are getting a lot more common, at least in this part of the Arctic.   “I think the story here . . . is that the number of grizzly bears on Victoria Island has increased quite markedly over the last 20 years. And part of that might be related to changing environmental conditions up here. It’s a bit warmer and it’s quite clear the grizzly bears are well-established here now and, of course, there is a healthy population of polar bears around,” he said.  David Paetkau, president of Wildlife Genetics International, based in Nelson. B.C., told the Star it was a “quirky” development that can’t be totally explained and that he was only interested in talking about substantive work that his firm does.

So here is my question, is it in fact a mule or can these hybreed make babies, and if so can they cross back and forth on which both breeds… so if the first DNA proven bear was in 2006 but the hunters can take four in a matter of a two weeks, there has to be alot more of them up there on that island and if that can happen there and in the zoo, it can certianly happen in other areas if climate change effects the plant and animal growth, its like the killer whales moving in ever increasing numbers up in the Canada north do to the changing sea ice.. hmmm, going to have to follow this one as more info becomes available..  Now we have half wolf-half coyotes in ontario/quebec within proven DNA moving back down into the upper eastern states with the daughter mix outpacing their parent species, wonder if that is what we will slowly see happen in regards to this mix, the best of both mixed into one package..