A Bear-pig Hybrid?
Ursus americanus × Sus scrofa
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EUGENE M. MCCARTHY, PHD GENETICS
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A diligent scholar is like a bee who takes honey from many different flowers and stores it in his hive.
—John Amos Comenius
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The following notice appeared on page 4, column 8, of the April 25, 1890, issue of the Pittsburg Dispatch, a newpaper published in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania (source). The same story appeared in many newspapers that year.
—Mr. J. O. Ellis, near Homerville, Ga., is in possession of a most curious looking animal, half bear and half hog. The animal has the hoofs, nose and eyes of a hog, while its body is covered with hair like a bear. It often stands erect and walks in that position. It is three months old, perfectly gentle and will eat anything offered. It has teeth like a bear and makes a grunting noise which sounds like the noise made by a young cub. It weighs about 25 pounds.
Homerville, in south Georgia, is the seat of Clinch County, which borders on the state of Florida.
If the report is true, then given the locale, the bear parent would have been Ursus americanus, the American Black Bear. Moreover, the presence this hybrid on a farm suggests that the mother was a pig, since an animal born to a wild bear would be unlikely to come into the possession of a farmer.
Other bear crosses:
A dog-cow hybrid?
By the same author: Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World, Oxford University Press (2006).
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