Top 10 hybrid animals.
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Our editors have created a list about the top 10 hybrid animals. Hybrid animals are cross-breds between animals of similar genetics. They mostly exist in captivity and are the result of human intervention. |
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10. Liger/Tigon
Though they are fascinating animals, they get the last of the list because they are the most popular known among the hybrids. Ligers are crossbreeds between a male lion while Tigons are crossbreds between a male tiger and a female lion. Ligers are the world’s largest cats. Tigons on the other hand, are prone towards dwarfism and are usually smaller than either of their parents. Male Ligers/Tigons are sterile while the females are often fertile. Below shows a liger and its trainer Dr. Bhagavan Antle at a Renaissance Festival in Massachusetts, USA, October 2005.
Futher Read: Truth Or Fiction
9. Wolf Dog
Dogs and wolves tend to crossbreed rather freely. The wolf is a shy animal depending on nuances in body language, facial expression and on hunting skills to survive. Their jaws are much stronger than those of a dog and are often used to exert dominance. For a dog wolf hybrid, it is not known when it will display a wolf behaviour or dog behaviour or something in between. Obedience training is a must in order to tame the animal.
Further Read: Dog’s Owner Guide
8. Iron Age Pig
Domestic Tamworth pigs are crossbred with wild boar to create ‘Iron Age Pigs’. The hybrids are tamer than wild boar but less tractable than domestic swine and generally become specialist pork sausages. Most of them are bred for the specialist meat trade.
Further Read: Wikipedia
7. Zebroid
A zorse is the result of crossbreeding a horse and a zebra. A zonkey is the result of crossbreeding a donkey with a zebra. The Zony is the result of crossbreeding a pony to a zebra. All these three are called zebroids - defined as a cross between a zebra and any other equid. Zebroids are preferred over zebra for practical uses such as riding because of its body shape. However it is more inclined to be temperamental and can prove to be difficult to handle.
Further Read: Green Apple, Wikipedia
6. Cama
A Cama is a hybrid between a camel and a llama. They are born via artificial insemination due to the huge difference in sizes of the animals which disallow natural breeding. A Cama usually has the short ears and long tails of a camel but the cloven hooves of a llama. Also most noticeably is the absence of the hump.
Further Read: Taylor Llamas, Wikipedia
5. Grolar, Pizzly
A grolar/pizzly hybrid is the product of a grizzly bear and a polar bear. Although the two bears are genetically similar, they tend to avoid each other in the wild. During 16 April 2006, a hybrid bear was shot dead by Jim Martell,a hunter from the United States, in Canada. It was the first time a hybrid was found in the wild where previous records of grolars or pizzlies have only been found in zoos.
Further Read: BBC News, Wikipedia
4. Leopon
A Leopon is the result of breeding a male leopard and a female lion. The head of the animal is similar to that of a lion while the rest of the bodies carries similarities to leopards. The most successful breeding programme was at the Koshien Hanshin Park in Nishinomiya City, Japan. Leopons are larger than leopards and likes to climb and enjoy water.
Further Read: Wikipedia
3. Hybrid Pheasant
The Golden Phesant has commonly been crossed with the similar Lady Amherst’s Pheasant. The result is a hybrid with distinguished colors from its parents.
Messy Beasts 2. Wolphin
A wolphin is a rare hybrid formed from a cross between a bottlenose dolphin and a false killer whale. There are currently only two in captivity at the Sea Life Park in Hawaii. A wolphin’s size, colour and shape are intermediate between the parent species. The first captive wolphin was Kekaimalu, which shows mixed heritage even in its teeth: bottlenose dolphins have 88, false killer whales have 44 and Kekaimalu has 66!
Further Read: Wikipedia
1. Ti-Liger, Ti-Tigon, Li-Tigon, Li-Liger
The top spot goes to ti-ligers/ti-tigon/li-tigons/li-ligers because it is a hybrid among the hybrids. It is a cross breed between a male tiger and a female liger/tigon or a male lion with a female tigon/liger. Do note that female ligers or tigons are fertile. They are extremely rare and are in mostly private ownership within a behavioural studies programme. In the case of ti-ligers, they have unusual striping where it breaks up and display a blotchy appearance. Since they are 3/4 tiger, their characteristics inhibit more of those of a tiger than a lion.
Top 10 Strangest Animals
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This creature is most probably the creation of an environmental problem. Children at a nursery in Weston-super-Mare, England spotted the three headed frog hopping in the garden. Source: BBC News |
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The blog famous cyclops kitten, Cy was first thought to be a joke photo manipulation. Living only for a day, It had only one eye and was noseless. Source: News.com |
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The most infamous headless chicken, Mike wowed the world by living for 18 months which indefinitely entered it into the Guinness World Records. It could still live becuase most of his brain stem and ear was left on his body. Source: Mike The Headless Chicken |
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Nope this is not photoshop manipulated. A female polar bear named Pelusa turned purple after she was given a special treatment to clear up a skin condition. This has attracted crowds at the Mendoza City Zoo in Argentina. The fur has returned to normal after a few days. Source: NW Botanicals |
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Genetic mutation called ‘feather duster’ of a parakeet. Source: Green Apple |
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Dolphins has taken a pink hue in the Pear River Delta situated between Hong Kong and Macau. It is not known why they are pink in colour but several assumptions include the lack of natural predators or the pink colour is a byproduct of blushing to regulate body temperature. Source: 2 Dolphins |
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The two-month old animal, named Cham Leck which means ’strange,’ was given to monks at a local pagoda by a farmer who feared the six legged cow would bring him bad fortune. Source: Steve Quayle |
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The hooded seal has a large elastic nasal cavity and when fully inflated resembles a large black ruber ball. They are large aggresive mammals that can exceed 3m in length and 400kg in weight. Source: Canadian Museum Of Nature |
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The large ocean sunfish vies for the title of strangest fish in the sea. It has an almost circular, flattened body. It weighs up to 2 tons and 3m long. The head is almost a third of the whole body length. Source: Earth Window |
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If you had your facts about the Siberian tiger being the largest cat, then you are wrong. The liger is the world’s largest cat, a cross breed between a male lion and a female tiger. They exhibit conflicts between the social habits of the lion and solitary habits of the tiger. Source: Wikipedia |
10 Creatures You Didn't Know Were Poisonous
Someone once said, "What you don't know can't hurt you." Here's an argument against that: It is good to know if something is poisonous before you approach it (or it approaches you). We unearthed 10 unlikely poisonous creatures in order to give you a better chance next time you head into the wild kingdom.
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10. Poison Arrow Frog: OK, the name kind of gives it away, but the poison arrow frog is only one of several amphibious species that secrete toxins from glands in its skin. The poison arrow frog uses its poison to kill potential predators. Native people of Central and South America use the toxin to poison the tips of arrows.
The Top 14 Signs Your Pet Is Addicted to the Internet
The Top 14 Signs Your Pet Is Addicted to the Internet
- Your "cookies" folder is almost empty, but there are countless files in "treats."
- There are a lot more tongue marks on the monitor than the ones *you've* left.
- The desktop wallpaper is now a close-up of Paris Hilton. Specifically, her right leg.
- Run the can opener; nothing.
Say, "Badger! Badger! Badger!"; Mittens runs to you like a cheetah on crack. - Well, *somebody* has been using your computer to visit MySpays.com.
- The computer's motherboard just whelped a litter.
- The cat dies of Corrupted Blood Plague.
- Rover refuses to catch anything but AOL installation CDs.
- No matter how often you update your Netflix queue, they always send you another batch of Lassie episodes.
- The canary will only fly in wi-fi enabled airspace.
- "Hello, Mr. Fluffy. I am writing to you in the confidential strictness to ask you assistance in gratefully retrieving my families estate in Nigeria."
- Your female iguana's eyes are always bloodshot and your browser history shows thousands of visits to GEICO.
- Your goldfish IMs you to change the damn tank filter.
and the Number 1 Sign Your Pet Is Addicted to the Internet...
- He keeps looking in the mirror and squawking "L33ty Bird!" "L33ty Bird!"
Cats' DNA reveals time and place of domestication.
Where did cats come from?
According to a new genetic analysis, modern-day housecats are descended from a population of domesticated wildcats that prowled the Middle East more than 100,000 years ago.
How did they figure that out?
Carlos Driscoll, a zoologist working at Oxford University and the US National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland, and his colleagues surveyed 979 cats from around the globe, including wildcats, feral cats, various domesticated breeds, sand cats and Chinese desert cats.
By comparing genome sequences, the researchers worked out the relationships between the different animals. The goal, the authors say, was to find "the archaeological imprints left in the genomes of living cats".
DNA shows that domestic cats are most similar to wildcats currently living in the deserts of Israel, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The results are published this week in Science1.
"We found five distinct lineages dating back 100,000 years prior to any archaeological record of cat domestication," says David Macdonald, a zoologist at Oxford University and a co-author on the study. "These appear to come from at least five female cats from the Near East whose descendants have been transported across the world by humans."
But I thought Fluffy was descended from Egyptian cats that were worshiped as gods.
Not necessarily. Although the Egyptians had a healthy respect for their regal felines, they probably weren't the first to welcome the animals into their homes.
Three years ago, scientists reported the discovery of a 9,500-year-old burial site in Cyprus containing a human and a cat2. This was interpreted as evidence that the animal was tamed and then buried with its owner, thousands of years before Egyptians worshipped Bast, a goddess sometimes depicted in cat form.
"The association of a cat and a human in death is strong evidence of association in life," says Jean-Denis Vigne, an archaeologist at the Museum of Natural History in Paris who worked on the discovery. But Vigne adds that this is not strong evidence that the society had embraced feline companionship. "This was a tight relationship between one human and one cat," he says.
Some believe even that goes too far. "There is no evidence of taming," says Tom Rothwell, of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. "This is just some human being who was buried with a cat." If the cat were a pet, Rothwell says, the tomb should contain a collar, harness, or food bowl.
Rothwell argues that the first firm evidence of cat domestication comes from a 2,500-year-old Egyptian mural showing a cat tethered to a chair and playing with a mouse.
So how did cats become pets?
Although the family tree shows the domestic cat branch originating over 100,000 years ago, this doesn't mean that cats were domesticated at this time. It just means that the population that lead to domesticated cats and Middle Eastern wildcats split off from the other wildcats around then.
Regarding domestication, the theory is that when hunter-gatherers became farmers, they began to store grain. The grain attracted rodents, which probably attracted wildcats, which gradually ingratiated themselves with their human neighbours. Vigne says he expects evidence of cat domestication dating from near the beginning of cereal stocks about 12,000 years ago to turn up eventually.
Of the 37 species in the cat family, the domestic cat is the only one that isn't endangered or threatened; there are an estimated 600 million worldwide.
Well I'll be sure to mention all of this at my next cocktail party. But can you do anything with this information?
Driscoll began the project while looking for a way to distinguish feral domestic cats from endangered Scottish wildcats, which are virtually identical to large domesticated tabbies.
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"That threatens the genetic integrity of the wildcat," says Driscoll. It also makes it difficult to determine how many wildcats are left.
Driscoll's analysis showed that genes are flowing from domesticated cats to wildcat populations. With his new genetic markers, Driscoll plans to conduct a census of Scottish wildcats, to work out how many are left.
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