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- Grolar Bear. Usually, it’s a bad idea for cousins to reproduce, but try telling this to the Grolar bear: a lovechild of the two most fearsome mammals on land, a polar bear and grizzly bear.
- Dzo. A product of a yak and domestic cattle, the Dzo is bred primarily to be a pack animal. They are found in Central Asia, and can also be called by a few other names, such as khainag in Mongolian, and yattle or yakow in English.
- Coywolf. One of the most common hybrids to come about naturally is the coywolf. They are made up of a combination of coyotes with either eastern or gray wolves, and are occasionally called “wolfotes”.
- Liger. The liger is the offspring of a male Lion and a female Tiger. Ligers only exist in captivity today, because the habitats of the parental species do not overlap out in the wild.
Aug 28, 2018 · The biologist Ernst Mayr proposed in 1942 that a species is a population of organisms that can all interbreed with each other, and which either cannot or do not interbreed with anything else. This ...
- Overview
- What are hybrid animals?
- What animals can hybridize?
- Are animal hybrids rare?
- Are animal hybrids good or bad?
Interbreeding between animals of different lineages is widespread in nature—and may reveal some of the mysteries of evolution.
Hybrids between brown bears and polar bears—called pizzlies or grolar bears—may become more common as temperatures warm and the species' ranges overlap.
In the summer of 2020, scientists in Pennsylvania caught sight of something no one had ever seen before: a bird that looked like a rose-breasted grosbeak but sang like a scarlet tanager.
Upon closer analysis, the animal was later determined to be a hybrid, the offspring of a mating event between two separate species.
“When I saw it, I said, ‘Oh my god!’” remembers Bob Mulvihill, ornithologist for the National Aviary in Pittsburgh. Mulvihill caught the bird and extracted a blood sample to study the hybrid animal’s genes.
While some animal hybrids are well known, like the mule, this case was more unusual due to the different colors of each bird species. Rose-breasted grosbeaks are black and white with a red patch on their chest, while scarlet tanagers are brilliant orange and black. (Read more about never-before-seen colorful bird hybrid.)
Genetically, a hybrid animal is the result of interbreeding between divergent lineages, says Erica Larson, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Denver.
Most non-scientists would take that to mean breeding between two different species, but it can also include subspecies or even populations within a species that are distinguishable from one another based on certain traits or characteristics.
“They might breed at different times of the year, or they might have behavioral differences that make them less likely to mate,” Larson says. “But then if they do mate, they might make hybrids that are totally fine.”
One instance of this may be the spotted skunk, which scientists recently divided into seven species, some of which look almost identical and live in the same areas, but mate and give birth months apart.
“Another great example is coral,” says Larson. “A lot of corals release their gametes at a very particular time. So all of these species are physically in the same place, and maybe they could form a hybrid,” but they miss the chance by spawning hours or days apart.
In captivity or a lab, however, those sorts of natural barriers are less of an obstacle to successful hybridization.
One of the most well-known examples of hybridization is the so-called liger, a cross between a male lion and a female tiger. Ligers were elevated to pop culture fame after a reference in the 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite, but fewer people have heard of the tigon, the offspring of a female lion and a male tiger.
Both pairings are extremely unlikely to happen in the wild because lion and tiger ranges almost never overlap. The same is true for the cama, a llama and dromedary camel cross, that live on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, but have been bred by researchers.
Equids can be especially prone to hybridize. Donkeys and horses can breed to create mules, while zebras and horses make zorses or other combinations.
In 2019, scientists proved for the first time that narwhals sometimes hybridize with belugas, resulting in a narluga. There are also at least 20 reports of various species of dolphins and whales producing hybrids in both the wild and captivity.
And it’s not just mammals. There are also documented cases of hybridization between timber rattlesnakes and western diamondback rattlesnakes, Cuban and American crocodiles, Russian sturgeon and American paddlefish, cutthroat trout and rainbow trout, as well as in various insects, such as ants, bees, wasps, and termites. Plants are especially capable at hybridizing and are thought to do so at even higher rates than animals.
One of the most populous hybrid species on Earth may be modern humans, which carry genetic signs of hybridization with other, ancient hominins, such as the Neanderthals and Denisovans. (Read how you may have more Neanderthal DNA than you think.)
While hybrids seem unusual, it’s likely that many are quite common.
For instance, Mulvihill says it’s probably no coincidence that hybridization is well documented in birds, where a whopping 10 percent of the more than 10,000 known species are known to hybridize. The reason why may be there’s a voluminous number of birders snapping photos of interesting sightings and then posting them to forums, birding association pages, or smartphone apps such as iNaturalist.
“Certainly, hybridization is pretty well known in butterflies, too,” says Mulvihill. But unlike birders, few casual observers of butterflies can easily detect signs of hybridization in the insects.
Some scientists also believe that certain hybrids may become more common in the future. For instance, as climate change shrinks Arctic sea ice, polar bears are expected to spend more time on land, where they may encounter brown bears expanding northward. If they mate, they can create hybrids known as pizzlies or grolar bears. (Read why scientists expect more hybrids as the Arctic warms.)
Hybridizing doesn’t always spell genetic doom. But it may not produce stronger species, either.
For example, ligers are prone to health problems, such as rapid growth and heart problems. (Learn more about ligers and other big cat hybrids.)
Also, the parent species may sport incompatible genetic differences, such as different numbers of chromosomes. This is one reason hybrids are often sterile, and a non-reproducing offspring can limit a parent’s success extending its gene pool.
“They have one less chance to pass on their genes to a future generation,” says Larson.
Hybridization can be troublesome if one or both parent species is in danger of extinction. This is because when a species’ genetics becomes rare, the hybrid’s new combination of genetics can threaten its existence by replacing it. This is called genetic swamping, and it’s why hybridization with coyotes is one of the many threats currently afflicting red wolves in the southeastern United States.
However, hybridization can also introduce beneficial genes, such as pesticide resistance, says Larson. If those genes help the hybrid survive and reproduce, such benefits can become widespread in a population. This is what scientists call adaptive introgression.
A crossbreed is an organism with purebred parents of two different breeds, varieties, or populations. A domestic animal of unknown ancestry, where the breed status of only one parent or grandparent is known, may also be called a crossbreed though the term "mixed breed" is technically more accurate. Outcrossing is a type of crossbreeding used ...
Sep 12, 2019 · When two animals of the same species mate, their offspring get 50% of their genes from each parent. This is what makes you look like a mixture of your parents. Hybrids are crosses between two difference species, so they contain 50% of genes from each parent species . A famous hybrid is the mule, a cross between a donkey and a horse.
Jun 2, 2024 · A crossbreed is an organism borne out of purebred parents from two different breeds. Thus, crossbreeding refers to the process of mating two organisms from different breeds. Normally, the crossbred animals gain complementary traits that enhance their aesthetic or economic value. Crossbreeding is usually done with the intention of producing ...
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May 1, 2021 · Focusing on animals in what scientists call hybrid zones—geographical regions in which two species interbreed to produce offspring of mixed ancestry—researchers in the late 1980s and early 1990s began to show that, contrary to the prevailing viewpoint, hybridization was a valid mechanism of evolutionary change—one that could radically influence an animal’s ability to adapt to its ...
