http://www.onearth.org/article/grolar-bears-and-narlugas-rise-of-the-arctic-hybrids
Climate change appears to be igniting a sexual revolution among Arctic mammals -- and that’s not good news for some endangered species.
In 2006 an American hunter shot an animal in the far north of Canada’s Northwest Territories that shared characteristics of a polar bear and a grizzly. Earlier this year, a similar bear was killed less than 200 miles away, and DNA tests confirmed it was a mixture of the two species. The "grolar bear" thus joined a growing list of cross-species couplings -- beluga whales and narwhals, right whales and bowhead whales, various seal mixtures -- all confirmed to varying degrees by scientists in the Arctic over the past two decades.
What’s going on here?
Climate change appears to be igniting a sexual revolution among Arctic mammals -- and that’s not good news for some endangered species.
In 2006 an American hunter shot an animal in the far north of Canada’s Northwest Territories that shared characteristics of a polar bear and a grizzly. Earlier this year, a similar bear was killed less than 200 miles away, and DNA tests confirmed it was a mixture of the two species. The "grolar bear" thus joined a growing list of cross-species couplings -- beluga whales and narwhals, right whales and bowhead whales, various seal mixtures -- all confirmed to varying degrees by scientists in the Arctic over the past two decades.
What’s going on here?
