Hybrids of different animals. Interspecific animal hybrids

Savannah - a hybrid of a wild serval and a domestic cat.Servakot turned out to be a beautiful and strong animal.The unusual species became popular among breeders in the late 20th century, and in 2001 the International Cat Association designated it as a new registered breed. Savannahs are much more sociable than the average domestic cat and are often compared to dogs due to their loyalty to their owners. They can be trained to walk on a leash and even fetch objects thrown by their owner.According to standards, servacotta must have black or brown spots, silver or black. Typically these animals have high erect ears, a long thin neck and head, and a short tail. The servacot's eyes are blue in childhood and green in adulthood. These cats weigh from 6 to 14 kilograms. They are not cheap, as for pets - from $600 and above.

Wolfdog - a hybrid of a wild wolf and a dog. Quite a common hybrid. Usually a wolf is crossed with a dog of a similar appearance - a German shepherd, a husky, a malamute. However, the physical and behavioral characteristics of hybrids do not always meet expectations.

Iron Age pig - hybriddomestic Tamworth pigs with wild hogs. This is how you get a pig from the Iron Age. This hybrid is much more tame than a wild hog. However, it is not as pliable as ordinary domestic pigs. The resulting animals are raised for their meat, which is used in some specialty sausages and other products.

And now a bonus question for eleventh graders:Explain why interspecific animal hybrids are sterile and how this sterility can be overcome? (in comments)

The fauna is rich in its diversity. But people never tire of experimenting, creating some species. Sometimes this has a practical meaning, and sometimes people just want to get an unusual animal. Most often, human-created hybrids do not take root in the wild, but there are also examples to the contrary.

1. Zebroid

To create such an animal, zebras were crossed with horses or donkeys and ponies. Idea to cross related species appeared quite a long time ago; these hybrids first appeared in the 19th century. Usually the father is a zebra. Very rarely is a donkey the father. Zebroids have distinctive feature from zebras A hybrid is much more comfortable to ride. The new kind noticeably stands out due to its unusual coloring. Part of it may belong to a horse, and part to a zebra. The character of the new species is quite unpredictable and is more difficult to train. Also, zebroids are born quite sickly and underdeveloped; most of these animals live only a few days. And they are often deprived of the opportunity to have offspring.

2. Liger and tiger lion

These animals were born by crossing predatory felines. The liger has a lion father and a tigress mother. A tiger lion, on the contrary, is a cross between a male tiger and a lioness. Ligers are quite large; they are generally considered the largest cats in the world. They look like big lions, but with blurry stripes. But tigers suffer from their small size; they end up growing smaller than their parents. The liger Hercules lives in Miami, whose height is as much as 3 meters and weighs 544 kilograms. In the hybrid, the males are sterile. But their females sometimes have the opportunity to bear offspring. Ligers love to swim, just like tigers, unlike lions.

3. Beefalo

This breed was bred to provide the best source of meat. To do this, scientists crossed a cow and an American bison. Science also knows similar hybrids - bison, crosses between large livestock and yaks. New species are created so that they can inherit best properties their parents and give them more meat. Beefalo has a bright red color, which is important because it contains much less cholesterol than traditional beef. The truth is that most buyers are generally unaware of the existence of such a product. After all, you can only buy it in a few stores in Seattle. Beefalo breeders say that its meat also has a more delicate and subtle aroma and taste than beef.

4. Camelama

This animal is a hybrid of a llama and a camel. The camel was first born in 1995. Since the size of the animals does not allow them to mate in natural conditions, scientists were forced to resort to artificial insemination. The resulting hybrid has short ears and a long camel tail. But the camel has double hooves, its legs are very strong and quite long. But this is very important for long journeys through deserts. The camel is a strong but small animal. In addition, it also lacks a hump, and its fur is fluffy, like that of a llama. Breeders have long tried to develop a new hybrid. It was possible to obtain it only by using a camel as a father and a llama as a mother.

5. Levopard

This animal was the result of crossing a lioness and a male leopard. The body resembles a leopard print, and there is a characteristic color. The spots are not black, but brown. But the head looks more like a lion's. The new hybrid is larger than a leopard. Leopard loves to climb trees and swim in water. The first documented mention of this animal was found in 1910 in India. The most successful experiments in breeding leopard were carried out in Japan. The lioness Sonoko gave birth to two cubs from the leopard Kaneo in 1959, and three years later three more. The male hybrids were infertile, the last of them died in 1985. But one of the females was able to give birth to offspring from a hybrid of a lion and a jaguar.

6. Servacott

This hybrid is often called a savannah cat. It was created by crossing an ordinary domestic cat and a wild African serval cat with a spotted color. And in order to get the most beautiful individuals they use different breeds cats. It could be Bengal, Serengeti, Egyptian Mau or Oriental Shorthair. The Serengeti breed itself was recently created by crossing the Bengal and Oriental breeds. It is named after a national park in northern Tanzania, Africa. This is where the serval lives. In 2001, the Savannah cat was officially recognized as a new breed. International Association cats. Servakot turned out to be a beautiful and strong animal. It is much friendlier than regular house cats. Cervacottas are believed to be as loyal as dogs. They are taught to walk on a leash, fetch a thrown stick or even shot game. According to standards, servacotta must have black or brown spots, silver or black. Typically these animals have high erect ears, a long thin neck and head, and a short tail. The servacot's eyes are blue in childhood and green in adulthood. These cats weigh from 6 to 14 kilograms. They are not cheap, as for pets - from $600 and above.

7. Arctic grizzly

This hybrid was created by crossing a white polar bear and a grizzly bear. Surprisingly, genetic relatedness does not result in these species interbreeding in the wild. They simply avoid each other, occupying different ecological niches. The grizzly bear prefers to live and breed on land, but the polar bear has chosen water and ice. However, in 2006, in the Canadian part of the Arctic, a strange bear was discovered on Banks Island. The study of his DNA allowed him to be declared a polar grizzly bear, born in natural conditions. Similar individuals had been encountered before, but DNA analysis was simply impossible then. The polar grizzly bear has thick, creamy white fur similar to polar bears. It has long claws, a humped back, small facial features, and brown markings around its eyes and nose, characteristic of a grizzly bear.

8. Hybrid of ram and goat

In 2000, a ram and a goat were accidentally crossed in Botswana. The animals were simply kept together. The new animal is called "Toast of Botswana". A ram and a goat have different numbers of chromosomes - 54 and 60. Therefore, their offspring are usually stillborn. But the surviving hybrid was able to inherit the characteristics of both of its parents at once. It has long wool like a sheep and the legs of a goat. The outer hair was rough, but the inner part of the coat was soft. The animal turned out to have the heavy body of a lamb. At 5 years old it weighed 93 kilograms. The animal had 57 chromosomes, which turned out to be average between the number of its parents. The hybrid turned out to be very active, with increased libido, although sterile. That is why he was castrated at 10 months. Cases of obtaining such a hybrid have been reported in New Zealand and Russia.

9. Red parrot fish

In Asia they adore aquarium fish, constantly creating new species. This species was released in Taiwan in 1986. How this mutation was obtained is still kept secret. After all, this allows local breeders to continue to maintain a monopoly on these fish. Rumor has it that the cyclid midas was crossed with the red cichlid. Their fry are gray-black, but by 5 months they become bright orange or pink. We learned this fish in the 90s; they bring it here from Singapore and other countries in Southeast Asia. If a red parrot is placed in an aquarium, the fish can grow there up to 10-15 centimeters. The color can vary greatly; in addition to orange, yellow is also possible. At some point in their lives, parrots can be crimson, lilac or bright red. However, over time they all acquire an orange color. Experts advise feeding this fish with special food containing carotene, this will help enhance the bright red color of their body. The resulting hybrid also has some pronounced anatomical deformations. For example, the mouth looks like a narrow vertical slit. Because of this, it is very difficult to feed such fish, which is why many of them die prematurely.

10. Hybrid pheasant

This bird was created by crossing a golden pheasant with a diamond pheasant. As a result, the new bird received a unique coloring of its plumage.

11. Orca dolphin

Quite rarely, but it is still possible to crossbreed aquatic animals. It represents the fruit of a dolphin from the family of bottlenose dolphins and the little black killer whale. There are only two such individuals in captivity. They both live in Hawaii, in a marine park. The sizes of hybrids are somewhere between the original species. The name of the first orca dolphin is known - Kekaimalu. The crossbreed is easily identified by the teeth. If the bottlenose dolphin has 88 of them, and the killer whale has 44, then the hybrid has 66.

12. Iron Age Pig

To obtain such a breed, domestic Tamworth pigs are crossed with wild hogs. This is how you get a pig from the Iron Age. This hybrid is much more tame than a wild hog. However, it is not as pliable as ordinary domestic pigs. The resulting animals are raised for their meat, which is used in some specialty sausages and other products.

13. Dogwolf

These animals interbreed quite often and freely in nature. The wolf is a rather cautious animal, its behavior is unique, and the hunter's instinct is very developed. The dog's jaws are not as developed as those of its wild predatory relative. When interbreeding, wolves are more shy than dogs. It is impossible to predict how the hybrid will behave in the future. Long-term training is required to tame a dog-wolf. After all, a hybrid can unwittingly choose the line of behavior of any of its parents. A dog-wolf can become a very dangerous creature. After all, he will be cunning and predatory, like a wolf, and fearless towards humans, like a dog. Recently, cynologists in the Czech Republic decided to cross Carpathian lone wolves with German shepherds. Experts wanted to get the perfect police dog. But it turned out that the resulting dog-wolf was in no way suitable for such work. The animals were either nervous and cowardly, or overly angry and aggressive. The resulting breed was nevertheless recognized and named the Czech top. In Holland they tried to crossbreed the same German shepherds and Canadian pack wolves. The results were also not what they expected. But another breed appeared - the Saarlos Wolfhond. And in Moscow they crossed a Siberian husky and a jackal. The goal was to create a new breed that would be as docile as a dog and have the keen sense of smell of a wild animal. However, the results will be clear only after the third generation of the new breed.

Everyone knows that in order to get a hybrid, it is necessary to cross two animals of different species, but from the same family. There are not that many hybrid animals, so many people are not even aware of their existence. So, this article will be devoted to the most unusual hybrid animals. Animal hybrids photos and descriptions TOP 10 - look!

Animal hybrids photos and descriptions TOP 10

Red parrot

Animal hybrids photo and description - red parrot

Scientists created this hybrid in 1986. The red parrot was obtained by crossing two varieties of cichlases. Many scientists consider such an experiment unethical, since the resulting fish have many anatomical defects that make their life difficult. These include the mouth, which has a small vertical opening, making it difficult for the fish to feed. Most often, parrots are colored orange, but other colors are also found among them, namely red and yellow colors. It is surprising that females can reproduce while males cannot, although there have been cases when fish gave birth to offspring.

Zebroids

Animal hybrids photos and descriptions - zebroids

As many have already guessed, a zebroid is a hybrid obtained by crossing a male zebra and a female horse. In general, a zebroid is common name for all representatives of zebra hybrids. Unfortunately, it is impossible to meet a zebroid in the wild, since they are found only in captivity, and they are born with various anatomical defects.

Animal hybrids photo and description - Khaynak

This hybrid animal is obtained by crossing a cow and a yak. Khaynak is much larger than its parents, therefore it is an excellent source of meat and milk. All females obtained in this way are very fertile, so they can interbreed in the future with any of the original species. Males differ from females in that they cannot create offspring. The most popular animals are in Mongolia and Tibet.

Animal hybrids photo and description - Kama

Kama was created in one of the laboratories in Dubai. The animal was obtained as a result of crossing dromedary camel with a llama. The breeders wanted to get an animal that would have the strength and size of a camel and at the same time the gentle disposition and thick hair of a llama. These hybrid animals can create their own kind, since both the llama and the camel have the same number of chromosomes. Since the llama is a very gentle animal, and even 6 times smaller than a camel, breeders had to use artificial insemination. To date, only six successful experiments in obtaining Kama are known.

Animal hybrids photo and description - grolar

An amazing animal resulting from crossing with a grizzly bear. In the wild, grizzlies and polar bears try to avoid each other, and besides, the animals prefer different conditions: polar bears love ice and water, and grizzly bears prefer plant diversity and warm climate. In addition, bears have different temperaments, since the grizzly is known for its excessive aggressiveness, but polar bear on the contrary, calm and peaceful. You can meet the Grolar in captivity and even in the wild.

Eastern coyote

Animal hybrids photo and description - eastern coyote

This is the name given to the hybrid of a wolf and a coyote. Today there are quite a lot of these animals in nature, so all red wolves have coyote genes in their pedigree. Scientists are still wondering whether these animals arose as a result of their crossing by humans, or whether red wolves have always been hybrid animals.

Animal hybrids photos and descriptions - savanna

Very beautiful and expensive cats that Lately are extremely popular. The breeders took as a basis an ordinary domestic cat and an African serval. Pet owners claim that the Savannah is even friendlier than regular house cats, which is why it is often compared to a dog because of its loyalty. Savannah is the tallest cat with a thin build, and is also an excellent jumper. The colors of the savannah vary depending on which domestic cat was taken for crossing. main feature Savannahs are spots on the skin.

Whale-dolphin hybrid

Animal hybrids photo and description - a hybrid of a whale and a dolphin

A very unusual experiment by scientists. The breeders took a dolphin and a small killer whale as a basis. Of course, the little killer whale is not a whale, since it is a large dolphin. Most animals live in the wild, but there are only 2 of them in captivity.

Killer bees

Animal hybrids photo and description - killer bees

These bees are also called African honey bees. These bees were not created intentionally, so they are just a mistake by one of the beekeepers. A man accidentally released 26 Tanzanian bees into the wild next to other hives that belonged to breeder Warwick Kerr, who wanted to create bees that could produce much more honey. As a result, the resulting killer bees began to multiply very quickly, so today they can be found even in America. The aggressiveness of bees is simply incredible, so in case of danger they instantly begin to attack in huge flocks. Every year in the United States, 2 people die from these killers.

Animal hybrids photo and description - liger

Perhaps the most amazing hybrid is the liger. The animal was obtained by crossing a male lion and a female tigress. Today, of all the representatives of the cat family, the liger is the largest, even more tiger and a lion. Ligers have some of the tiger, such as a love of swimming, and some of the lion, their graceful social behavior. It is impossible to meet a liger in the wild, since they live only in captivity. For a long time Scientists believed that ligers were not capable of reproducing, but in 1953 this opinion was refuted when a female liger was crossed with a lion. The cub had poor health, however, this did not prevent him from growing into an adult male.

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Some of these wonderful creatures were bred by scientists, while others are the fruit of interspecies love. Some are alive and well, others have disappeared, the appearance of others is a little scary. A columnist for Modern Farmer magazine talks about animals that emerged as a result of crossing different agricultural species.

1. Beefalo, a cross between a cow and a bison

Americans associate the 70s with the fashion for huge curly hair in the “Afro” style and President Nixon with his “Watergate”. And this is also the time of triumph for the beefalo. The first hybrids of a domestic cow and an American bison were discovered back in 1749 by English settlers in the American South. Only 100 years later, people began to crossbreed cows and bison on purpose, and more than 200 years later, beefalo appeared. And it became an integral part of American culture. In the 70s they were bred on more than six thousand ranches across America. Since then, the popularity of beefalo has declined significantly, but the meat of this animal has loyal fans. At the 2013 All-American Steak Competition, Merril's Beefalo Steak won its second consecutive Grand Prize in the Country category.

Beefalo. Photo: Old Hickory Beefalo Farm.

Dzo. Photo from Flickr.

2. “Zo”, a mixture of cow and yak

More precisely, a mixture of a cow and a Tibetan yak. Accordingly, they live in Tibet. Like mules, male dzo are sterile, but female dzo, called "zomo", are highly fertile, making it possible to produce hybrids that contain only a quarter of the blood of domestic cows. Such hybrids are larger and stronger than yaks and local bulls, making them ideal pack animals for carrying equipment for climbers planning to conquer Everest.

3. Bison, bison + cow

Among the hybrids of livestock with wild relatives, one cannot fail to mention the bison: it is a cross between cows and bison. The bison is a European wood bison that is on the verge of extinction, but has been given a chance to survive thanks to the efforts of biologists who have launched a project to return bison to the forests. We can say that the bison is the European answer to the beefalo.

Who exactly came up with the idea of ​​crossing a camel and a llama to create the first kama and call him Rama? Of course, crown prince Dubai.

After World War I, many Europeans, such as the Poles, thought bison would replace livestock due to their ruggedness and disease resistance. But scientists were able to breed the first bison capable of reproduction only in the 1960s, and 20 years later the Polish government curtailed the program because farmers and state farms were not interested in bison. The only herd of bison still lives in Belovezhskoe national park in Poland.

Zubrons. Photo: Wikicommons.

Kama. Photo: Craig Wright/Flickr

4. Kama, a cross between a camel and a llama (camel +lama)

Who exactly came up with the idea of ​​crossing a camel and a llama to create the first kama and call him Rama? Of course, the Crown Prince of Dubai. A camel is 6 times heavier than a llama, so getting offspring from animals in such different weight categories is only possible through artificial insemination. When Arab scientists took on the task in 1998, they hoped to produce an individual with the hair of a llama and the even temperament of a camel. But to their disappointment, Rama had a very capricious character. The experiment failed.

5. Yakalo, a cross between a yak and a buffalo

The only place where these incredible animals have ever roamed is the Canadian province of Alberta. In 1926, the local newspaper "Reporter" talked about this hybrid successfully colonizing National Park Wainwright, one of the Canadian reserves created to maintain the American bison population. Yakalo was well tolerated by Canadian harsh winters, provided a lot of meat, but for some reason did not become popular. And by the beginning of World War II, Wainwright Park was turned into a military base.

Sheep goat Lisa. Photo: The Daily Mail/Flickr

Yakalo. Photo from the archives of the University of Alberta Libraries

6. Sheep goat

Millions of years of existence on different branches of evolution and a mismatched set of chromosomes did not stop one loving goat on a farm in Northern Germany. He jumped over the fence and charmed one of the inhabitants of the sheep pen. As a rule, such relationships end in stillbirth, but the owner of the animals, Klaus Externbrink, had the good fortune to watch how a completely healthy ewe goat was born, who was named Lisa. This is the rarest case of the appearance of viable offspring in a goat and sheep naturally. But scientists successfully breed such hybrids in laboratories. However, this is a different story.

7. Iron Age Pig

Scientists obtained this animal by crossing a wild boar and a Tamworth sow. The goal of this experiment was quite pragmatic - to get a pig with delicious meat, as similar as possible to those that can be seen in ancient paintings. The meat of this hybrid is in demand among gourmets in many countries, but it can only be purchased at specialized meat markets. In Russia, similar animals were bred by farmer Pyotr Mishin, whose semi-wild boars were sold in LavkaLavka. Much to our regret, for a number of reasons, it was decided to repurpose the farm.

Iron Age pig. Photo: Whitelands Farms

Cheasant is a chicken-pheasant hybrid. Photo: Blue Hill Farms

8. Game + poultry

Different species of birds, due to their genetics, interbreed much more easily than mammals. Hybrids of pheasants and chickens (pictured), pheasants and turkeys are known, and Canada geese are capable of producing offspring from any other species of geese. But, oddly enough, no one has yet been able to successfully cross a chicken and a turkey.

9. Mules and hinnies

Donkeys and horses have given the world two of the most common and practical agricultural hybrids. This is a mule - the fruit of the love of a donkey and a horse, and also a hinny - the son of a horse born of a donkey. In America, the founder of crossing donkeys with horses and donkeys with horses was none other than George Washington. Since then, mules have performed the vast majority of jobs that require pack animals. They are superior to horses in strength and endurance. And although they cannot reproduce themselves, they can be cloned. In 2003, the first cloned mule, named Idaho Jim, was released at the University of Idaho.

Mules

Chimera

10. Chimeras

Another hybrid of a sheep and a goat, but created not by nature, as in the case of Lisa the sheep from point 6, but by bioengineers in the laboratory. A chimera is the result of a combination of sheep and goat embryos, created from two genetically different cells. And this result is similar to the creation of Dr. Frankenstein from the world of pets. The first such hybrid was obtained in 1985, and its appearance opened up a sea of ​​possibilities for scientists, such as the study of human liver cells introduced into the body of laboratory mice. But practical use results of experiments with chimeras in medical research with human tissue raises many ethical questions that are unlikely to be resolved in the near future.

There's a lot to think about here. If you feel the need to recover after reading this seemingly light-hearted and funny list, take another look at the photo of sleeping bison - it has a calming effect.