What is a Hybrid?
In biology, a hybrid is the offspring resulting from combining the qualities of two organisms of different breeds, varieties, species or genera through sexual reproduction. Hybrids are not always intermediates between their parents (such as in blending inheritance), but can show hybrid vigor, sometimes growing larger or taller than either parent.
The concept of a hybrid is interpreted differently in animal and plant breeding, where there is interest in the individual parentage. In genetics, attention is focused on the numbers of chromosomes.
Hybrid Animals
1. Liger
The liger is a hybrid offspring of a male lion (Panthera leo) and a female tiger (Panthera tigris). The liger has parents in the same genus but of different species. The liger has a faint tiger-like striped pattern upon a lionesque tawny background. In addition, it may inherit rosettes from the lion parent (lion cubs are rosetted and some adults retain faint markings). These markings may be black, dark brown or sandy. The background color may be correspondingly tawny, sandy or golden.
In common with tigers, as an example of countershading, the underparts are pale. The specific pattern and color depend upon which subspecies the parents were and how the genes interact in the offspring. The liger is often believed to be the largest known cat in the world. Males reach a total length of 3 to 3.6 m (9.8 to 11.8 ft), which means that they rival even large male lions and tigers in length. They generally, enjoy swimming, which is a characteristic of tigers, and are very sociable like lions.
2. Tigon
A Tigon is the hybrid offspring of a male tiger (Panthera tigris) and a female lion (Panthera leo), they exhibit visible characteristics from both parents: they can have both spots from the mother (lions carry genes for spots – lion cubs are spotted and some adults retain faint markings) and stripes from the father.
Any mane that a male tigon may have will appear shorter and less noticeable than a lion’s mane and is closer in type to the ruff of a male tiger. It is a common misconception that tigons are smaller than lions or tigers. They do not exceed the size of their parent species because they inherit growth-inhibitory genes from both parents, but they do not exhibit any kind of dwarfism or miniaturization; they often weigh around 180 kilograms (400 lb).
3. Zonkey
A “zonkey” is a hybrid cross produced by mating a zebra and a donkey. The Zebra and the Donkey are closely related to one another and both belonging to the Horse family means these two species share a number of similar characteristics including their size.
The Zonkey tends to be of a similar size to these animals but takes on a more definitive Donkey-like appearance, with the obvious exception of inheriting the uniquely-striped pattern on their fur from their Zebra parent. Zonkeys are not a true species because they have an odd number of chromosomes and cannot reproduce. While zonkeys are rare, they are bred in a number of zoos and specialized farms around the world.
Zonkeys tend to be tan, brown or grey in color with a lighter underside, and it is on the lighter parts of their body like their legs and belly where the Zonkey’s darker stripes are most prominent (they are much harder to see on the darker parts). The Zonkey also has a black mane which extends along the ridge of their back to the tip if their black tail, and a large head and ears which makes the Zonkey look much more like a Donkey than a Zebra.
4. Jaglion
A jaglion or jaguon is the offspring between a male jaguar and a female lion (lioness). It has the lion’s background color, brown, jaguar-like rosettes and the powerful build of the jaguar.
5. Geep
A sheep–goat hybrid (called a geep in popular media or sometimes a shoat) is the offspring of a sheep and a goat. While sheep and goats seem similar and can be mated, they belong to different genera in the subfamily Caprinae of the family Bovidae.
A geep is not actually an offspring of the sexual mating of one sheep and one goat; rather, it is an animal resulting from the physical mingling of very early embryos of the two species and thus has four parents two sheep and two goats. The scientific term for an animal with mingled cells from two species is chimera.
6. Grolar Bear
A grizzly–polar bear hybrid (also named grolar bear, pizzly bear, grizzlar, or nanulak) is a rare ursid hybrid that has occurred both in captivity and in the wild.
7. Coywolf
Coywolf is type of canid that was created by mixing western coyotes and eastern wolves. Coywolf can be found in the northeastern parts of the USA and southeastern parts of Canada today. It inhabits grassy plains, woodlands, ravines and areas near the streams.
Also Read: Types of Tigers
8. Zebroid
A zebroid is the offspring of any cross between a zebra and any other equine to create a hybrid. In most cases, the sire is a zebra stallion.
9. Savannah Cat
The Savannah cat is the largest of the cat breeds. A Savannah cat is a cross between a domestic cat and a serval, a medium-sized, large-eared wild African cat.
10. Wholphin
Wholphin is marine mammal created by cross-breeding of bottlenose dolphin and false killer whale. Both species live in warm temperate and tropical waters and they often congregate in the wild.
11. Beefalo
Beefalo, also known as “cattalo”, is a hybrid created by mixing American bison (also known as American buffalo) with different types of domestic cattle.
12. Hinny
A hinny is a domestic equine hybrid that is the offspring of a male horse (a stallion) and a female donkey (a jenny). It is the reciprocal cross to the more common mule, which is the product of a male donkey (a jack) and a female horse (a mare). The hinny is distinctive from the mule both in physiology and temperament as a consequence of genomic imprinting.
13. Narluga
The narluga is a hybrid animal that is a mix between a narwhal and a beluga.
14. Cama
A cama is a hybrid between a male dromedary camel and a female llama, and has been produced via artificial insemination at the Camel Reproduction Centre in Dubai. The first cama was born on January 14, 1998. The aim was to create an animal capable of higher wool production than the llama, with the size and strength of a camel and a cooperative temperament.
Also Read: Different Types of Striped Caterpillars
15. Dzo
A dzo also spelled zo, zho or dzho is a hybrid between the yak and domestic cattle.
16. Leopon
A leopon is the hybrid offspring of a male leopard and a female lion. The head of the animal is similar to that of a lion while the rest of the body carries similarities to leopards. These hybrids are produced in captivity and are unlikely to occur in the wild.
17. Mulard
The mulard (or moulard) is a hybrid between two different genera of domestic duck: the domestic Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata domestica) and the domestic duck (Anas platyrhynchos domesticus).
18. Zubron
Zubron is a hybrid of domestic cattle and wisent. The wisent is the European bison; hence, the zubron is analogous to the American beefalo.
19. Yakalo
The yakalo is a cross of the yak (Bos grunniens) and the American bison (Bison bison, known as a buffalo in North America). It was produced by hybridisation experiments in the 1920s, when crosses were made between yak bulls and both pure bison cows and bison-cattle hybrid cows. As with many other inter-specific crosses, only female hybrids were found to be fertile (Haldane’s rule) and therefore, few of the hybrids survived, and the experiments were discontinued in 1928.
20. Boar-Pig or The Iron Age Pigs
Boar–pig hybrid is a hybridized offspring of a cross between the Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa scrofa) and any domestic pig (Sus scrofa domesticus).