In 2006, on Banks Island, 2000 km north of Edmonton, Canada, a sports hunter from Idaho shot a hybrid grizzly/polar bear. At first, Martell and his Inuit guides thought the animal was a polar bear, but closer inspection reveraled the features of a grizzly bear as well. The bear had thick, creamy white fur typical of a polar bear, but had the long claws, humped back and concave face of a grizzly bear. It's eyes were surrounded with rings of black fur and it had small brown patches of fur on its nose, back and one paw. The bear was one from a population at Sachs Harbour. The polar bear is a descendent of the grizzly bear (the grizzly is variable in colour and the palest bears would have had a survival advantage on the ice). A lab analysis of the DNA confirmed it was a hybrid. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA showed the mother to have been a polar bear and the father to have been a grizzly bear. With polar bears now considered in danger of extinction, it is sad that $50,000 allows a hunter to kill one of these beasts. Other unusually coloured "polar" bears have been seen in the region and may also be hybrids.
Source: HYBRID BEARS http://www.messybeast.com/genetics/hybrid-bears.htm |
