Thursday, September 25, 2014

5 Bizarre and Amazing Hybrid Animals

People have always been curious about cross breeding and what could happen if your mix one animal with another that’s similar to it. When certain breed of animals are cross bred with another, the results can be quit surprising.

Here are 5 Hybrid Animals that are both bizarre and amazing.

Zebroid
Zebroid
Also called a zebrule, zebra mule or zedonk, this animal is the result of breeding a zebra with a different equine, creating a zebra hybrid. Zebroid is used as a generic name for different types of zebra hybrids. Most of the time, the breeders use a zebra stallion as a sire. There’s no distinct species of zebra being used to create a hybrid and most do successfully mate and produce offspring. These animals commonly retain the trademark stripes of zebras.

Liger
Liger
This is a cross between a lion, which is often times the male specimen of the pair, and a tiger. Lions and tigers do share the same genus but are different species. Ligers are known to be huge, bigger than the average male lion, even when they’re female. They enjoy swimming, a trait they got from tigers, but are sociable and live well with others like lions. They only exist in captivity since their parental species don’t share the same habitat in the wild.

Wolphin

Wolphin
Wolphin or wholphins are rare hybrids. They’re born from mating a bottlenose dolphin with a false killer whale. Their names imply a mix between a dolphin and a whale, although taxonomically, they’re both within the same family under the same suborder. There have been reports of these animals actually existing in the wild, but there are currently two specimen in captivity found in Hawaii’s Sea Life Park. Fishermen and seafaring lore call these animals “The Great Gray Beast.”

Grolar Bear
Grolar Bear
An ursid hybrid that has exsisted both in the wild and captivity, this is a mixture between a polar bear and a grizzly bear. One confirmed wild specimen was found in 2006 when DNA testing on a strange looking bear seen near the Canadian Arctic was done. They look more like polar bears only their fur has a brown tint to it and they also have the grizzly bear’s hump.

Beefalo
Beefalo
These are a known hybrid between domestic cattle and an American bison or buffalo. They were created to create a domesticated animal that shared the features of both animals to boost up beef production. Beefalo are mainly cattle in appearance and genetics.  A downside of the creation of this breed is that it has caused a setback in the conservation of wild American bison since the herds are partly crossbred and genetically polluted with cattle.

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