Bizarre Hybrid Animals That Actually Exist
Rarest cross-breed hybrid animals If you could create an animal, what would it be, and how close is science to actually making one for real? Let’s explore the world in search for the rarest hybrids that could ever happen, some are so bizarre they look like successful laboratory experiments while others just happened by pure change perhaps to help save some species form extinction… in a world of infinite possibilities, what is the next step in the evolution of nature? Meet the rarest cross-breeds hybrids you won’t believe actually exist.
6 Geep
Farm animals are so necessary and cute, petting zoos would not be as fun if there were no sheep or chickens or goats. Kids roaming around petting the animals and feeding the other “kids” that’s the name of the baby goats! Goats, they eat everything and even steal the food you got for everyone at the petting zoo. And despite how you feel about goats, one may even climb on you. Sheep on the other hand, they just like to relax and be fed. So, what if you could get the best of both? Softer to pet, more playful but less rambunctious? Nearly impossible, goats have 60 chromosomes while sheep have 54… what do you do with the extra chromosomes? To answer that, meet the geep and extremely rare hybrid that almost never makes it to birth. A birth of one of the geep is newsworthy. And in 2014, that was one of the biggest headliners in Scottsdale Arizona, were one healthy geep was born. The family was shocked since they did not ever think that was possible!!
5 Grolar Bear
Stuffed bears, pretty much every child has one! They are soft, fluffy, and so huggable! But what about the really giant ones? Meet the cuteness overload, a hybrid between the largest bear in the world and a fluffy artic wanderer who can live in inhospitable places you will need more than a coat to survive. The polar bear. Due to climate change, the grizzly bears have been moving north looking for food and shelter from human encroaching. As they migrate, they meet other bear species and breeding with them. Although there have been many encounters of polar bears meeting the grizzly, there have only been few cases of successfully hybridizing the two in the wild. The result? The Grolar bear. The grolar bear can be found in zoos as its common practice to hybridize animals in order to enlarge the genetic pool of certain species. But what would be the effects in the wild? Further research will be done in the future to see how the grolar bears adapt to climate change. What if they are the answer to the polar and grizzly bear survival and adaptation?
4 Coywolf
What if red riding hood’s “grandma” was something more sinister…? We humans have managed not only to hybridize animals in labs and zoos, but also due to hunting, there have been many species that have to fill the void left due to negative human-animal interaction. One of the best examples of ecological imbalance is the out-of-control deer population in many northeastern parts of the United States where wolves where once kings. Wolves are at the top of the food chain; they hunt the weak in a herd and keep the balance in the ecosystem. Therefore, ensuring stronger herds in ecologically manageable numbers. But what would mate with a wolf? After the Europeans settled in the new world, the wolves were deliberately driven to the brink of extinction. As a result, coyotes had to take the reigns as top predator. In the wild, there have been many encounters of coyotes who have moved east encountering eastern wolves. The result: Coywolf a genetic adaptation between the two. What does it mean for the environment? Regaining a top predator is the best way to keep nature in balance, something we humans are still learning to do. Even if the answer is not just a wolf or a coyote but the coywolf.
3 Here Large Kitty, Kitty
What would happen if the zoo forgot to close the doors from the jaguar and lion dividing gate or the lion and tiger? As bizarre as that sounds, there have been several large cat funny businesses going on. The most impressive of all is the jaglion, a hybrid mishap gone well from a male jaguar and a lioness. The offspring is a larger version of the jaguar, with its rosette patterns and a mild version of a lion’s mane. Tsunami and Jazhara are twins, both displaying the jaguar like rosettes but one is black like a panther while the other has the light color of a lion. These unique siblings live in Canada, if you are heading up north to Barrie Ontario, swing by the Bear creek sanctuary, Tsunamy and Jazhara are there having a blissful time playing and being large kitties. Another extremely impressive hybrid is the white liger a Siberian white tiger that was paired with a lion. Its fur is as dense as a lion but it displays the coloration and stripes of the magnificent tiger. The most famous liger is called Hercules, he is the opposite of the white liger, he actually displays the lion’s coloration but its body looks like a tiger. His magnificent size is much larger that his two parents, hence his name.
2 The Snow Barnacle Goose Swan
With its long neck, a swan could win the price of the most graceful of the birds, its shiny white or deep black feathers complete the elegant ensemble. So why would they even consider settling for anything less sophisticated than themselves? Nature, a mystery that would never be solved, keeps throwing curve balls to our understanding of evolution vs. Adaptation. There have been few cases of the large snow goose pairing with swans resulting in the snow swan hybrid. A stockier looking swan with a shorter neck, that looks very much like a goose with a longer neck. As bizarre as that may look, in 2008 scientist spotted a unique pair of parents. One of them was a snow swan hybrid with its barnacle goose mate. Although swans and goose are closely related, the barnacle goose is a far distant cousin. The result, three of the cutest babies displaying the characteristics of the three genetic donors. Unfortunately, of the three babies observed, 2 disappeared but the remainder Snow barnacle goose swan mated yet no offspring was observed.
1 Holy Mystery Batman!
Let’s travel back in time to an era where the world looked very different, giants roamed the land and flew over seas and one particular bat was a common ancestor to many fruit bats around the Caribbean sea. Two species of Caribbean bats still have a trace of the old, long gone ancestor… the far-removed cousins mated and produced a third specie called the Artibeus schwartzi… interestingly, although there is DNA evidence of its ancestral parents, there is an ancestral unknown mother. This is evident in the hybrid fruit bat’s DNA found in the mitochondria, the power house of the cell. Mitochondrial DNA can only be transferred from the mother to her offspring. This third specie has not been identified yet. Now, let’s travel forward, more or less 30,000 years into our current era. Today, the A. schwartzi is a completely separate species. the ancestral mother could have perished at the end of the ice age when the raising sea waters made it nearly impossible for many bats to succeed crossing the vast oceans before finding other bats. As a consequence, the triple hybrid became its own separate specie. Its ancestral mother will remain in the shadows.
