Hybrid Cubs Show Polar Bear and Grizzly Traits

What happens when you cross a polar bear with a grizzly bear? Turns out, the babies sport a mix of features, such as partially hollow hairs, according to BBC News.

The findings come from an experiment that started in 2004, when a female brown bear gave birth to two brown-polar bear hybrids at the Osnabruck Zoo in Germany. The cubs were transported to another zoo to see what would happen if they were raised without the intervening of either their polar-bear or grizzly-bear parents.

Recent examination of the bears suggests they have long necks and visible tails similar to polar bears and small shoulder humps like brown bears. The results are published in the journal Der Zoologische Garten.

Some features showed a mix between the parents: For instance, the soles of the hybrids' feet are partly covered in hair. (Polar bears have hair-covered feet while grizzlies have hairless soles.) And the hair on the hybrids' back is hollow, but with smaller hollow regions than in hair of polar bears.

One of the most important questions is still unclear: While the male hybrid is sterile, it's not known whether the female is fertile and could continue this breed in the wild, according to BBC News.

The findings will help scientists to understand how such species will fare as the world's climate changes.

While polar bear is thought to reside in the Arctic, which is farther north than grizzly-bear terrain, the bears may come into contact in some regions of the Canadian Arctic and Siberia. And scientists are finding clues that as the world warms the grizzly bear could be expanding its range northward, invading polar bear territory. The result could be interbreeding between the two species.

Read the full story at BBC News.

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