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I swear, by 2012 the Bundestag is going to elect a polar bear as Germany’s first ursine chancellor. Now that Knut is losing his youthful good looks, all eyes in that bear-happy country are turned to adorable little Snowflake, who made her public debut at the Nuremburg Zoo today. So, if Knut is like a somewhat hairier verson of Britney, this would make Snowflake the bear version of Miley Cyrus or Vanessa Hudgens. (The bear version of Madonna is probably an ageing Kodiak bear that moved to Minsk after the fall of the Berlin Wall.)

Crowds reacted to Snowflake’s first appearance just as we’ve learned to expect. Live pictures of the event were transmitted around the world, and the zoo is expecting 25,000 people a day to show up for the privilege of watching Snowflake cavort with her human keepers in 15-minute segments. Incidentally, Snowflake’s upbringing was taken over by humans after her mother developed a habit of dropping her on the floor. Not much of a mother, maybe, but her attitude toward cutesy polar bear child stars can’t be faulted.