CBC News is reporting that a hunter in northwest Territories shot and killed a very odd-looking bear, assuming it was a grizzly, or brown bear (Ursus arctos). On closer inspection, though, the animal, described as "dirty blonde" in color, is considered a possible hybrid that might be half grizzly and half polar bear (U. maritimus.) Canada's Department of Environment is investigating. If confirmed, this would apparently be the first recorded case of such a hybrid in the wild.
COMMENT: Strange bears do turn up from time to time, but the only unquestioned polar-grizzly crosses came from instances where the two species mated in a zoo. MacFarlane's bear, a pre-World War II specimen from Northwest Territories, was yellow and weighed about 600 lbs. It was so strange that mammologist C. Hart Merriam described it as Vetularctos inopinatus "new species and genus." Since there were never any more specimens, though, Merriam's identification was gradually rejected or forgotten. One suggestion is that this was a grizzly-polar hybrid. The skin and skull are apparently still in the Smithsonian, and no one has ever dug them out for modern analysis. See my own Rumors of Existence (1995) and Terry Domico's Bears of the World (1988.)
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