IN brief

Published: November 30, 2008

BERLIN — Flocke, the German celebrity polar bear, has new twin siblings.

The Nuremberg zoo says Flocke’s mother, Vera, gave birth Nov. 21 to cubs weighing about one pound each.

Their genders won’t be known for several months.

Zoo Director Dag Encke says the cubs have a 50 percent chance of survival.

He says Vera is caring for the cubs without assistance — a sharp contrast to Flocke, who was rejected by Vera and raised by zookeepers.

She made her public debut in April and will have her first birthday in December.

Flocke and the new cubs have the same father, Felix.

He lives in a Denmark zoo.

TOKYO — Japanese zookeepers have wondered for a while why two polar bears that they had hoped would mate have shown little interest in each other.

The answer came this month when the zoo discovered both the bears were female, the zoo said Wednesday.

Tsuyoshi, a 4-year-old polar bear, and 11-year-old Kurumi have been living in the same enclosure at the Kushiro Municipal Zoo in Hokkaido in northern Japan since June.

The zoo said it thought Tsuyoshi was male because of the bear’s appearance. It did not explain further. Male polar bears are generally significantly larger than females.

"Observing his behaviors, we got suspicious as to whether Tsuyoshi was really a male,” the zoo said Wednesday.

It’s all about bears

The popular German polar bear, Flocke, has two new siblings. In Japan, concerns about two bears who weren’t showing an interest in each other were answered when zookeepers discovered both the bears were female.

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