Ever heard of a Grolar? How about a Pizzly? Actually they are the same animal; a cross between a polar bear and a brown grizzly. Two are currently being studied at Osnabruck Zoo in Germany after an accidental mating between a female brown bear and a male polar bear which were in the same enclosure.
Grolar/Pizzly
The Pizzly bear isn't the only strange animal cross-breed out there - check out some more of the world’s rarest hybrid animals.
The offspring show fascinating characteristics of both species; they are midway in size between the two species, have long necks like polar bears but shoulder humps like their mother.
Most interesting is their pelt; polar bear hair is hollow for added insulation, grizzlies have solid hairs but the coat of the offspring is a mixture of the two. The only known wild example was shot by a hunter in 2006.
Liger
Crossing the world’s two fiercest big cats sounds as sensible as getting Mike Tyson tanked up on Red Bull and calling him a sissy, particularly when the offspring are 10 foot long and weigh up to 900lbs.
Thankfully Ligers, born of a male lion and a tigress are relatively easygoing. Ligers have tiger like stripes on a background coat a similar colour to a lion’s.
Tigon
Mate a female lion and a male tiger and the offspring is known as a Tigon or Tiglon. Roughly the same size as its parents, a Tigon can have a coat that is both spotted and striped since lions carry the gene for spots.
Unlike the gentle giant Liger however, Tigons are extremely aggressive. Ligers and Tigons can be further interbred to create a confusing range of animals known as Ti-Ligers, Ti-Tigons, Li-Tigons or Li-Ligers depending on the nature of the cross.
Zorse
Every little girl who loved horses secretly wanted to turn up at Pony Club with a zebra. Well a Zorse is the next best thing, born from a zebra stallion and equine mare. They are bred in Africa and used for trekking on Mount Kenya.
Their coats are an intriguing mix of horse and zebra, displaying stripes over the base colouring of the mare’s coat. Their shape is more suited to riding than the stockier zebra but they remain quite wild and need to be handled carefully.
Zetland
Cumbria seems an unlikely location for a hybrid to spring up but this was exactly what happened at Eden Ostrich World when a zebra was left in a field with a Shetland pony in 2001. The result inspired a tune called ‘Song for the Zorse’ by The Coronets.
Cama
Attempting to breed the grumpiness out of a camel is no bad thing but crossing it with an animal from another continent entirely seemed like a long shot.
Thankfully both camels and llamas share the same number of genes making it possible via artificial insemination. The result is smaller than a camel and lacks a hump but has longer legs and ears than a llama.
Leopon
Apparently a leopard really can’t change its spots, even when mated with a lion. The result is halfway between the two in size and has a lion like head and short mane in males but the coat is spotted like a leopard’s. Unlike lions, Leopons love water and despite being much larger, shares its climbing abilities.
Wholphin
A False Killer Whale is one of the largest members of the dolphin family and shares characteristics with the more famous black & white Orca. However, it’s been known to mate with bottlenose dolphins and there are currently two ‘wholphins’ in captivity in Sea Life Park, Hawaii.
In size colour and shape a wholphin is midway between the two parents and that even applies to its teeth; a bottlenose has 88 teeth, a false killer whale 44 but a wholphin has 66.
Beefalo
Although accidental crosses between buffalo and domestic cattle were noticed in North America as far back as the 18th century, it wasn’t until the 1800s that deliberate attempts were made to breed the two.
The hope was that the offspring would be hardier and better able to survive harsh winters. An unexpected side benefit is that beefalo meat is lower in fat and cholesterol than beef although at the moment it is only available in Canada.
The Toast of Botswana
An accidental mating between a female goat and male sheep in Africa resulted in an animal which had long, goat-like legs but a heavyset sheep’s body, while its coat was a mixture of hair and wool.
Although infertile it was extremely keen on both sheep and goats and had to be castrated at 10 months old after earning itself the nickname ‘Bemya’ or ‘rapist’.
The final Curious © phrase:
“HYBRID, n. A pooled issue”
(Ambrose Bierce)
