Unusual Number of Grizzly and Hybrid Bears Spotted in High Arctic!

Unusual Number of Grizzly and Hybrid Bears Spotted in High Arctic

Two Canadian biologists have reported sighting a handful of grizzly bears and hybrid grizzly/polar bears at unusually high latitudes in the Arctic, indicating that the interbreeding of the two bear species is becoming more common as the climate warms and grizzlies venture farther north. The sightings of three grizzly bears and two hybrid bears, made in late April and May, represent an unprecedented cluster of these animals at such high latitudes. The biologists even took DNA samples from a grizzly bear at 74 degrees North latitude.

The report of the sightings comes on the heels of a recently published analysis of newly sequenced polar bear genomes, suggesting that climate change and genetic exchange with brown bears helped create the polar bear as we know it today. The genetic mixing that the Pennsylvania State and University of Buffalo analysis identified happening in the past — in which polar bears would interbreed with grizzly bears as the polar bears’ sea ice habitat shrunk — is now happening again, according to bear biologists.

The sightings this spring represent the fourth and fifth confirmed hybrid bear sightings in recent years. Scientists say that it is evident from reports from Inuit hunters that many other animals are adapting their lifestyles to changes in climate, just as grizzlies did when they split from polar bears four to five million years ago.

The article continues:

Up until about 20 years ago, sightings of grizzlies in the High Arctic were relatively rare. But that began to change as a succession of brown bears started showing up on the Arctic islands, following caribou perhaps that routinely cross over from the mainland. No one had seriously thought that these grizzlies would eventually mate with polar bears until Roger Kuptana, an Inuit guide from Sachs Harbour on Banks Island, led an American hunter to one in the spring of 2006. The killing of that animal made headlines around the world.

See also:

Grizly-Polar Bear new bear
Polar bear plus grizzly equals?



Fascinating. Didn't know these existed! So others might not as well...

Seems like climate change is proceeding at an astonishing pace. (

oh wow pizzly bears!


what the bears are doing makes alot of sense.



they basically say "hey grizzly, we polar bears are running out of space to live, can we borrow some genes so we can survive?"


and the grizzly bears are all like "yea sure no problem, polar bear babes are sexy anyway"



and then there was the pizzly bear

From what I understand from the links above, these hybrids are fertile, and so can bread.

I had no idea this was possible between the two species.

Awesome revelation.

grizzlies decided to take it into their own hands to propagate the species. and they say nature needs us to do it for them?

southern grizzly circles have only heard rumor their white haired goddesses i for one have seen the fallbacks of having white hair surround your butt when your a polar bear. pretty nasty.

This intrigues me a bit. Like many ATSers, I log many hours a week seeking answers to some of life's most unresolved questions--evolution included. I would hate to speculate on the amount of information that I have read or watched on the internet, over the past 18 years, regarding evolution. Though it is a known fact that earths climate has changed-from hot to cold-countless times throughout known history, my impression has been that evolution is presented as a one way street. We even have fossil records to prove it--so they say. I think that I would have remembered reading that humanoids turned back into ape men, or that birds turned back into dinosaurs, every time a major set-back hit the planet. The current level of climate change would not even register as a hiccup compared to some past cataclysmic events (such as ice ages, impacts, etc).

There must be a lot that we have not been told; our understanding of everything is flawed; or, we have not dug deep enough to find the answers to our origins.

reply to post by supertrot


I have never understood the theory of evolution as you described.

In a sense, it is a one way street in that as time moves forward, the species changes. Mutations produce an organism that functions differently from its progenitors. Viability, of course, is then determined by the environment and circumstance.

Whether new genes (or combinations thereof) are produced by mutation or inheritance is immaterial to the basic function of the process.

I think it is highly unlikely that evolution routinely produces what could be considered a reversion to a prior species. The variables in play are simply too numerous for that to occur even over the course of millions of years or in unchanging environments, imo.

Notwithstanding, change routinely occurs in species. It does not take global environmental change for this to happen.

Not only cold and miserable, now they're bi-polar!




I've let myself out already....

reply to post by Qumulys




I wonder what name they will provide to this hybrid?

Someone already mentioned "pizzly bear".

Polar Grizzly, maybe?

Originally posted by SoymilkAlaska
oh wow pizzly bears!

hahahaha - or GROLAR Bears ?

reply to post by loam


hmmm.
Pog Bears?
Grizzlar Bears?
Prizzy Bears?
Iwillfindyouandthenkillyou Bears?

reply to post by babybunnies


I love that one. Very good name.

Originally posted by loam
From what I understand from the links above, these hybrids are fertile, and so can bread.

I had no idea this was possible between the two species.

Awesome revelation.

edit on 29-7-2012 by loam because: (no reason given)

www.americanbear.org...

There are eight different kind of bears around to day, they all have a common ancestor, so its not uncommon that that can inter bread. Generally they are separated by habitat, but with our planets climate in a period of flux due to the fact we are in a natural occuring warming period (not man made global warming) there habitats are becoming entwined.

Originally posted by loam
reply to post by Qumulys

 

I wonder what name they will provide to this hybrid?

Someone already mentioned "pizzly bear".

Polar Grizzly, maybe?

If only they would take the DNA and add human DNA into it, we might see something like the following that I grew up with:

Yes that's right. the He-man universe will become a reality!

A few weeks ago i saw a short documentary in German TV,

they call him Golar Bear .

A quick search shows the same result..................

reply to post by SheldonCooper


Golar Bear.

Love it!