When you think of a hybrid species, a majestic centaur or a scary beast with wings, a tail, and human hands may come to mind.
Although this mental image is undoubtedly influenced by the types of films you enjoy, cross-breeding is not nearly as outlandish as it may seem.
In recent years, scientists have recognized them in the wild based on small variations in their physical characteristics, and they now believe that some are the result of climate change.
In 2010, the journal Nature released a study listing 34 potential hybrid species that may become common in the Arctic.
This is because sea ice is fast melting due to global warming, forcing once-isolated animals to migrate to new hunting grounds.
As a result, they are encountering one another and mating, creating new hybrids that may eventually eliminate the original species from the gene pool.
“Brolar” bears include both brown bears and polar bears
In the past, the United States and Canada have yielded evidence of a hybrid species descended from brown bears and polar bears.
They are known as ‘Brolar bears’ or ‘Pizzlies’ and have a predominantly white coat with a brownish tint and a nose that is a hybrid of a polar bear and a brown or grizzly bear.
As they do not rely as heavily on sea ice for hunting, they are known to be more adapted to warmer temperatures than their Arctic counterparts.
Polar bears subsist on a specialized diet of blubber and utilize sea ice to hunt seals that surface for air.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that the Arctic ice cover is diminishing, making it more difficult for these animals to obtain the nutrition they require.
Polar bears have been making their way inwards in search of more food due to the shifting landscape.
As a result of the rising temperature, brown bears are now able to hunt further north, and their habitats overlap, causing them to confront each other.
As a result, bears have been giving birth to hybrid pups, which were first spotted in the wild in 2006, when hunters in the Arctic killed a white bear with brown spots in Canada.
In contrast to polar bears, grizzly bears are well-adapted to consume tough foods such as plant tubers or to scavenge carcasses when food is scarce.
This indicates that brolar bears are more able to adapt to a changing diet and temperature than polar bears, which could aid in the preservation of the polar gene.
“Narlugas” refers to narwhals and belugas.
In 1990, a hunter in West Greenland uncovered what seemed to be the skull of a hybrid beluga whale-narwhal.
DNA tests did not prove that the creature was 54 percent beluga from its father and 46 percent narwhal from its mother until 2019.
The hybrid may have been grey in color and sported a narwhal-like tail but beluga-like pectoral fins, according to experts.
Carbon isotopes inside the bone collagen of the skull also suggested that the ‘narluga’ foraged closer to the ocean floor than both belugas and narwhals.
Even though the specimen represents the only collected evidence of narlugas, the hunter who acquired it reported simultaneously capturing two other identical creatures.
Both beluga whales and narwhals inhabit the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas and are members of the monodontidae family.
The 2010 study published in Nature identifies this as a potential consequence of climate change since melting sea ice will increase their likelihood of coming into touch.
The authors wrote, “The rapid melting of Arctic sea ice threatens species through interbreeding and habitat loss.”
As more isolated groups and species interact, they will breed, hybrids will arise, and unusual species will likely become extinct.
As species’ genomes interbreed, adaptive gene combinations will be lost.
Cross-breeding may influence social and ecological interactions, they added.
The presumed narwhal–beluga hybrid discovered in Greenland possessed teeth that combined characteristics of both species but lacked the narwhal’s tusk, a crucial factor in narwhal mating success.
“Coywolves” consists of coyotes and eastern wolves.
For decades, the coywolf, a coyote-wolf hybrid, has been spotted throughout eastern North America.
It is believed that they originated in Canada in the 1920s when coyotes expanded their range from the west into Ontario’s Algonquin Park.
Simultaneously, as Europeans colonized the country, the territory available to eastern wolves shrank, thus they were restricted to this park.
In 1969, scientists for the first time formally described coywolves, which have since spread over the East Coast.
They can hunt white-tailed deer in North America because they have a larger body, skull, and mouth than western coyotes.
Coywolves are not a result of climate change, but they are more adaptable animals than wolves, having demonstrated the ability to live in both urban and rural locations as the terrain changes.
‘Harbour-Dall’ porpoise – Harbour porpoises and Dall’s porpoises
The child of the harbor porpoise and Dall’s porpoise is recognized as a hybrid species in the 2010 Nature article.
Grey and white in color, harbor porpoises inhabit temperate waters in the North Atlantic and North Pacific.
There are Dall’s Porpoises in the North Pacific up to 65°N, and they have a distinguishing black and white pattern.
Off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, hybrids of the two species have been discovered, which have been ascribed to locally low harbor porpoise populations.
Males may mate with other species due to the disruption of their environment, which is believed to be causing their decrease.
According to the BC Cetacean Sightings Network, hybrids resemble harbor porpoises but appear to behave more like Dall’s porpoises by bow-riding and fast surfacing.
In 2011, a pregnant Harbour-Dall porpoise was found stranded on San Juan Island, which was unusual because hybrid animals typically produce sterile offspring.
Experts anticipate that as temperatures rise, harbor porpoises will migrate north, increasing their chances of mating with Dall’s porpoises.
Similar hybridization may occur as species interact in freshly colonized Arctic areas with low starting numbers, according to the researchers.
The harp and hooded seals
Due to dwindling sea ice, numerous species of Arctic seal are predicted to breed and produce hybrid pups.
This contains a hybrid of the harp seal and hooded seal, both of which breed on the pack ice of the North Atlantic Ocean and extend into the Arctic Ocean during the summer.
The harp seal is silver with a black face and a black pattern on its back, whereas the hooded seal is white with black spots.
In 1997, a hybrid animal discovered in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada was reported formally and validated by DNA analysis.
Even though not all interspecies matings result in progeny, the likelihood is greater for Arctic species.
According to the 2010 study’s authors, this is because their “number of chromosomes has changed little through time.”
“Bowhead-right whale” refers to Bowhead and Right whales.
David Withrow of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration discovered the child of a bowhead whale and right whale in the Bering Sea in 2009. (NOAA).
Mr. Withrow stated, “I recall the sighting extremely clearly.”
A colleague and I were searching for ice seals in the north to capture and attach satellite transmitters on.” I could see two big whales swimming towards us as we stood on an ice floe just south of the Bering Strait.
Even though I had a nice pair of binoculars, I was beating myself when I couldn’t recognize these whales when I spotted them approaching.
One whale was larger and broader than a grey whale, but it had barnacle-like growths on its rostrum, no dorsal fin, and a bowhead-like general appearance.
I forwarded several photographs to colleagues on the East Coast of the United States who frequently work with Atlantic right whales.
‘Surprisingly, they were certain that this animal was partially composed of a right whale, based in part on the form and size of the blowhole and the massive structure in front of the blowhole, which likely helps direct water away.
The sighting occurred at the southern limit of where one could expect to encounter bowhead whales and at the northern limit of where right whales had previously been reported.
I still do not know which species of a whale this animal was. I believe the hybrid classification best describes what I observed.
Right whales occupy the North Pacific and North Atlantic, whereas bowhead whales inhabit the same regions.
As sea ice disappears, the 2010 article implies that right whales would migrate further north to the Arctic, where they will meet and mate with more bowheads.
Northern flying squirrels and southern flying squirrels make up the North American flying squirrel.
In Ontario, Canada, scientists have investigated the relationship between inbreeding between northern and southern flying squirrels and climate change.
In 1995, according to Dr. Jeff Bowman of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, hybrids of the two began to form.
In 2009, his team published a report describing how a series of warm winters caused southern flying squirrels to migrate to northern habitats and breed with northern flying squirrels.
The hybrid animal has the body form of the southern species and the grey-and-white belly fur of the northern species and accounts for approximately four percent of the local offspring of flying squirrels.
