• Polar bear sensation Knut immortalized in Berlin museum

    John MacDougall / AFP - Getty Images

    The sculpture of polar bear Knut is exhibited at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin on on Feb. 15.

    Markus Schreiber / AP

    Late polar bear Knut is on display at the Natural History Museum in Berlin, on Feb. 15. Knut was hand-raised after his mother rejected him. He rose to stardom in 2007 as a cuddly cub, appearing on magazine covers, in a film and on mountains of merchandise. He died in 2011 after suffering from encephalitis.

    Reuters -- Knut, the hand-reared polar bear who captured Germans' hearts before his early death in 2011, returned to his adoring Berlin public on Friday as a life-sized model bearing the animal's real fur.

    Knut will stand for a month in the entrance foyer of the city's natural history museum, which has modified its entrance for the anticipated rush of visitors, a museum spokeswoman said.

    The museum is keen to stress that Knut has not been stuffed. Rather, a replica of the bear was made, based on Knut's skeleton, in one of his favorite poses, and this was covered with the creature's pelt, in a procedure known as dermoplasty.

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    Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters

    Knut plays with a blanket during the bear's first presentation in Berlin zoo on March 23, 2007.

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  • Herbert Knosowski / AP file

    Knut, the polar bear cub, has its first public appearance with his keeper Thomas Doerflein in the Berlin zoo on March 23, 2007. A Berlin zoo official says world-famous polar bear Knut has died. Bear keeper Heiner Kloes said that four-year-old Knut died Saturday, March 19, 2011 while alone in his compound. He says the cause is not yet clear.

    Knut the polar bear dies at Berlin zoo

    By Katie Cannon, Senior Multimedia Editor

    According to Spiegel Online, Knut suddenly collapsed and died in the water area of the polar bear enclosure as 600-700 visitors to the zoo watched. Knut was hand-raised by zookeepers after his mother rejected him at birth, and the keeper pictured with him, Thomas Doerflein, passed away of a heart attack in 2008 at the age of 44. Read the full Spiegel story here, and read more about Doerflein here. See more images from Knut's life here.