A few weeks ago I mentioned that there is some debate as to the taxonomy of the Polar Bear; specifically, as to whether it was simply a clade of the Brown Bear species. Interesting, I note that today a Polar Bear-Grizzly hybrid was shot in Canada:
There have long been stories of oddly coloured bears living in regions where the two territories overlap.
But until now, grizzly-polar hybrids, dubbed "grolar bears" or "pizzlies", have been found only in zoos.
The hybrid bear was shot last month by an American big game hunter on Banks Island, Northwest Territories, Canada.
His guide, Roger Kuptana, noticed the creature had the long claws and slightly humped back of a grizzly bear and thought it might be a hybrid.
The body was seized by officials, who sent a DNA sample for tests which confirmed its unusual origins.
If this is not a "one-off" or sterile hybrid that leaves the opening for gene flow between these populations.
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That is a couple of years old shot. I wonder if there were any sightings since then.
man...never trust digg.
You can easily change "I note that today a Polar Bear-Grizzly hybrid was shot" to "I note today that a Polar Bear-Grizzly hybrid was shot". ;-)
There won't be much gene flow if people keep shooting all of the hybrids they see.
On a more serious note, I thought it'd already been accepted that polar bears weren't a distinct species. Just how controversial is the issue?
It won't be the last time that a Polar bear comes to a Grizzly end....
The great majority of conservationists/environmentalists do not accept the Dobzhansky/Mayr biological definition of species (ie a set of individuals mutually fertile ...) and instead rely upon morphological features. Thus, the existence of fertile hybrids is irrelevant to them. It is also irrelevant to the Endangered Species Act, which also uses morphological criteria.
Well, if hybrids are sufficient to unite two species, I guess we have to move the human/chimp split forward to 2.5 mya, since gene flow was still happening till the chromosome number changed...
Seriously, it makes little sense to categorize species and clades purely be fertility. Biology will not be reduced.
When I read this story two years ago, I thought this was another evidence that evolution is still marching on, independently of humans.
This brings me to my pet peeve about environmentalists. Their politics are all based on one fundamental assumption: evolution stopped running when human industry started running. This assumption is, we all know, false but difficult to disprove. This "pizzly" bear is one proof.