Even before human intervention/interference, animals often mate with other species, resulting in more unique offspring. Over time, humans have taken advantage of this hybridization to “manufacture” animals that weren’t there before. Here, we look at what hybrid animals are and whether they can reproduce. We also highlight popular examples.
What Is a Hybrid Animal?
A hybrid animal refers to the offspring resulting from a combination of two organisms of different qualities. This can be distinct species, genera, variety, or subspecies. Hybridization mostly happens through sexual reproduction. In biology, the cells of a hybrid animal have genetic materials from two different organisms.
Are Hybrid Animals Real?
Yes, hybrid animals are real. If anything, interbreeding between different lineages of animals has (and continues to) happened naturally since time immemorial. Some even reveal evolution mysteries.
Can Hybrid Animals Reproduce?
Whether or not a hybrid animal reproduces depends on its sex. This is because the offspring is often sterile or generally unhealthy. Scientifically, sexual differences in fertility adhere to Haldane’s Rule. It states that, for hybrid species, only one sex is inviable or sterile and has a higher chance of being heterogametic sex.
Following the Haldane’s Rule, male mammals have XY chromosomes. As such, hybrid animals like “ligers” and “tigons” (animal hybrids from tigers and lions) are sterile. On the other hand, females have a pair of X chromosomes and are, therefore, more fertile.
In insects and birds, females have ZW sex chromosomes, while males have ZZ. As such, based on Haldane’s Rule, male hybrids are more likely to be fertile, while females are sterile.
Examples of Popular Hybrid Animals
As aforementioned, nature (and sometimes humans) has facilitated hybridization, resulting in more fascinating offspring. Some of the popular hybrid animals include:
1. Liger and Tigon
A liger refers to the hybrid offspring from breeding a lion and a tigress. The parents of a liger share the same genus but have varying species. The opposite of a liger is a tigon (results from breeding a male tiger and a lioness.
2. Zeedonk
Sometimes referred to as zonkey, zebadonk, deebra, zebronkey, or zebrass, a zeedonk is a hybrid animal resulting from crossing a zebra and a donkey. A zorse, on the other hand, is the hybrid of a zebra and a horse. Any offspring resulting from crossing a zebra and any other equine is called a zebroid.
3. Grizzly-Polar Bear Hybrid
Though rare, a grizzly and polar bear can mate and have an offspring called a grizzly-polar bear hybrid. Sometimes referred to as grolar bear, zebra bear, grizzlar, or pizzly bear, this hybrid offspring can result both in the wild and captivity.
4. Savannah Cat
The savannah hybrid cat was first discovered in the late 20th century. It is an offspring resulting from crossing a domestic cat with a serval.
5. Mule
When a male donkey mates with a female horse, the result is a mule. On the other hand, an animal hybrid resulting from crossing a male horse and a female donkey is called a hinny. Of the two, the mule is easier to obtain and is, therefore, more common than the hinny.
6. Jaglion
Sometimes referred to as a jaguon, a jaglion is a hybrid offspring between a lioness and a male jaguar. Crossing a female jaguar and a male lion results in a liguar.
7. Pumapard
When a cougar and a leopard mate, the result is a pumapard. Throughout history, male cougars with female leopards and male leopards with female cougars have paired to produce offspring. The hybrids are characterized mainly by dwarfism.
8. Golden-Crowned Manakin
Hybrid cases are few and far a part in birds; the golden-crowned manakin is amongst the limited examples. It is a perching bird endemic to the south-central Amazon Rainforest in Brazil. The golden-crowned manakin is a hybrid between snow-capped manakin and opal-crowned manakin.
9. Zubron
A zubron is an offspring from crossing domestic cattle with a wisent (European buffalo). Interestingly, the hybrid got its name following a contest with hundreds of proposals sent to Przekroj, a Polish weekly magazine.
10. Eastern Coyote
This is a hybrid with coyote and wolf parentage. The eastern coyote is smaller than the eastern wolf but bigger than a typical western coyote.
11. Toyger
A toyger is the result of breeding a domestic shorthaired tabby with a tiger. Judy Sugden created the breed, hoping to inspire people to care about wild tiger conservation.
12. Bengal Cat
A Bengal cat is created by crossing domestic cats with Asian leopard cats. It gets its name from the leopard cat’s taxonomic name.
13. Coydog
When a female dog is crossed with a male coyote, the result is a canid hybrid coydog. Interestingly, both sexes of the hybrids are fertile and can be successfully bred to the fourth generation.
14. Blood-Red Parrot Cichlid
Often referred to as the parrot cichlid, the blood-red parrot cichlid is a fish hybrid first bred in Taiwan around 1986. The fish has numerous anatomical deformities, including its mouth, which has only a narrow vertical opening. Feeding is, therefore, hard and is often susceptible to malnutrition.
15. Dzo
Dzo is a hybrid created when a domestic cattle interbreeds with a yak, a long-haired domesticated cattle usually found in the Himalayan regions. Depending on the region, dzo can be spelled as zo, zho, or dzho.
16. Sheep-Goat Hybrid
As the name suggests, a sheep-goat hybrid is created when a sheep is crossed with a goat, which belongs to different genera in the Caprinae subfamily.
17. Cama
Often produced through artificial insemination, cama is a hybrid between a male dromedary camel and a female llama.
18. Wolfdog
A wolfdog breed can be created by mating an Ethiopian wolf, red wolf, gray wolf, or eastern wolf with a random domestic dog.
19. Beefalo
When a male domestic cattle is crossed with a female American bison, the result is a hybrid beefalo. This is usually done to combine the characteristics of the two species for enhanced beef production.
20. Wholphin
Though extremely rare, a female common bottlenose dolphin can mate with a male false killer whale to produce a wholphin. One factor that makes this combination extremely unlikely is that the size difference between the animals involved is humongous.
Conclusion
Whether in captivity or the wild, animals from different species, subspecies, varieties, and genera can mate to produce hybrids. In mammals, male hybrids are usually sterile. On the other hand, though rare, female hybrid birds are mostly sterile. Popular hybrid animals include beefalos, ligers, mules, savannah cats, and jaglions.
