The death in 2010 of Jerka, a polar bear at a zoo in Germany, has been blamed on a herpes virus that originated in zebras. By sequencing and analysing viral genetic material from Jerka (pictured) and other polar bears, Alex Greenwood at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin and his team identified the polar bear virus as being similar to the zebra EH VI herpes strain. However, the virus that was found in the polar bears was a recombinant strain, which could explain how it was able to jump between species.
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