Meet the Polar Bear of Tomorrow

[We Never Know]

And nature carries on.

Polar bear...
Species: U. maritimus

Grizzly bear...
Species: U. arctos

Producing the hybrid Pizzly or Grolar Bear


"In 2006, Andrew Derocher was in the field with an Inuit hunter when a message crackled over the CB radio: A strange-looking bear had been shot a few miles away. The bear, found at the southern tip of Banks Island in Canada’s Northwest Territories, didn’t look like a typical polar bear. With a dingy white coat and scattered tufts of brown fur, it resembled a dirty version of the Arctic predator. It had dark rings encircling its eyes like sunglasses, and its claws were a few inches too long.

Derocher, a professor of ecology at the University of Alberta, would later learn that the bear was the first known grizzly bear–polar bear hybrid found in the wild. Since then a handful of similar hybrids—nicknamed grolar bears or pizzly bears—have turned up.

While the bears are still rare, says Larisa DeSantis, an associate professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University, the new hybrids may become more common as the Arctic ice melts, depriving polar bears of their customary hunting grounds on ice floes. This forces them to hunt on land, where they increasingly encounter northerly-ranging grizzlies.

But DeSantis doesn’t think that hybridization is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it gives her hope for the future"

Meet the Polar Bear of Tomorrow | Sierra Club

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

They missed an opportunity:

FOZZY BEAR!

 

[Viker]

I like calling them grolar bears. Pizzly sounds, I dunno.

Reminds me when they blended lions with tigers to give us liger.

 

[exchemist]

I like calling them grolar bears. Pizzly sounds, I dunno.

Reminds me when they blended lions with tigers to give us liger.

Hmm, this raises an interesting point: would these hybrids be fertile, or would they be sterile like mules, hinnies, ligers and tigons? I imagine this will depend on how closely related the species are, cf. ring species. (They would need to be fertile if they are to be the future for polar bears.)

P.S. Just re-read the link more carefully and indeed they can be fertile.

 

[Brickjectivity]

But DeSantis doesn’t think that hybridization is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it gives her hope for the future"

I admire her positive spin on it. Its inspiring in the way that it would inspire me if fire ants could fly. That would be amazing. Or what if raccoons could spit venom? Awesome!

 

[Revoltingest]

@Wu Wei is a known to miscegenate.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I like calling them grolar bears. Pizzly sounds, I dunno.

Reminds me when they blended lions with tigers to give us liger.

The name tells you which one was the father. A Pizzly bear has a polar bear father and a grizzly bear mother. And vice versa for a grolar bear. A liger has lion father. A tigon has a tiger father.

 

[Viker]

The name tells you which one was the father. A Pizzly bear has a polar bear father and a grizzly bear mother. And vice versa for a grolar bear. A liger has lion father. A tigon has a tiger father.

That's fair, I guess. I still like grolar bear. It's already growling on me.

 

[Subduction Zone]

That's fair, I guess. I still like grolar bear. It's already growling on me.

They should take at least the first two letters from the father. How does Pozzly Bear sound? "Polzey"?

 

[We Never Know]

Hmm, this raises an interesting point: would these hybrids be fertile, or would they be sterile like mules, hinnies, ligers and tigons? I imagine this will depend on how closely related the species are, cf. ring species. (They would need to be fertile if they are to be the future for polar bears.)

P.S. Just re-read the link more carefully and indeed they can be fertile.

"Researchers at Penn State University and the University of Buffalo have completed the most in depth bear DNA study to date. The project has revealed a lot about genetic relationships between bears, and also the unlikely romances that pepper their history.

"From previous studies, we knew that polar and grizzly (or, brown) bears are "sister species." That means that they share some DNA background; scientists believed they had split from one another fairly recentlyabout 600,000 years ago.

However, this latest DNA analysis suggests that they have, in fact, been two distinct species for the past four to five million years. Most grizzlies and polar bears out there these days share less than two percent of their DNA."


The Genetic Relationships Between Bears | A Moment of Science - Indiana Public Media.

 

[Heyo]

Hmm, this raises an interesting point: would these hybrids be fertile, or would they be sterile like mules, hinnies, ligers and tigons? I imagine this will depend on how closely related the species are, cf. ring species. (They would need to be fertile if they are to be the future for polar bears.)

P.S. Just re-read the link more carefully and indeed they can be fertile.

They are basically brown bears. Grizzly, Kodiak, Polar and European Brown Bears are subspecies as they can interbreed with usually fertile offspring for both pairings.

 

[We Never Know]

I like calling them grolar bears. Pizzly sounds, I dunno.

Reminds me when they blended lions with tigers to give us liger.

Naming..

"Since the 2006 discovery placed the hybrid into the spotlight, the media have referred to this animal with several portmanteau names, such as pizzly bear, grolar bear,[27] and polizzly, but there is no consensus on the use of any one of these terms. Canadian wildlife officials have suggested calling the hybrid "nanulak", taken from the Inuit names for polar bear (nanuk) and grizzly bear (aklak).[28]

By one convention,[29] the name of the sire comes first in such combinations: the offspring of a male polar bear and a female grizzly would be the suggested nanulak or a "pizzly bear", while the offspring of a male grizzly and a female polar bear would be a "grolar bear" or possibly an aknuk."

Grizzly–polar bear hybrid - Wikipedia

 

[We Never Know]

I admire her positive spin on it. Its inspiring in the way that it would inspire me if fire ants could fly. That would be amazing. Or what if raccoons could spit venom? Awesome!

Good outlook! That post actually made me lol

 

[Wu Wei]

@Wu Wei is a known to miscegenate.

Yeah well.... I'm not the only one

 

[The Sum of Awe]

How did they mate? Are there grizzlies in the Arctic?