UPDATE: friday 01 april 2011: knut the polar bear drowned after suffering brain disorderTwo weeks after the death of Knut the polar bear, investigators have determined the cause of the four-year-old's untimely demise.
According to the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW), Knut suffered from a brain inflammation and muscle spasms that caused him to fall from his perch and drown in the enclosure's pool.
Claudia Szentik, pathologist with the IZW, said that the inflammation in Knut's brain was so massive that "he would have died sooner or later." ~ read more
UPDATE: saturday 26 march 2011 knut the polar bear died of epilepsy, autopsy shows
''Everyone is just in shock here,'' said Claudia Bienek, a spokeswoman for Berlin Zoo where Knut shot to global fame as a photogenic snow-white cub rejected by his mother and reared by hand.
Knut, pulled dead from a pool in his enclosure he shared with three females on Saturday afternoon, was just four years old, well below the average life expectancy for polar bears of around 35. ~ read more
