I ended up deciding to incorporate this adopt from seskata into my Para-Imperium universe.

Meet Henrik Andreasohn, otter/arctic fox hybrid. He grew up on a rather chilly border world of the Federation, hence the arctic species in his genome, then enlisted in the Navy as an engineer. After a couple centuries with them he signed up on a free trader captained by a wolf of the name of Shigeto Terryn and started an on/off relationship with a fennec/jerboa from a desert outworld, imagine the thermostat arguments.