$$ The Most Bizarre Animal 'Hybrids' That Actually Exist
Just when you thought all the strange animals on Planet Earth had been discovered, Honest To Paws is here to knock your socks off. Animal crossbreeds may not be anything new when it comes to dog or horse breeding — but sometimes, nature presents some truly wacky hybrids itself. Have you heard of a "pizzly" or a "cama"? What about a "dzo"? They look as funny as they sound. Just see for yourself.
Geep
One of the rarest Earth hybrids is the geep. Not only is the name fun to say, but they're also super cute. As adorable and seemingly harmless as these little geep — geeps? — are, they're not really natural, and one shepherd in Germany found this out the hard way.
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Flock Together
The shepherd had a flock of goats and sheep, which were normally kept separate. However, during one particular mating season, one goat and sheep got a little too close when no one was looking. The result was a perfectly healthy baby geep. These accidental crosses extend to ocean animals, too.
Wholphin
Go out on an ocean cruise in secluded waters, and you might spot an elusive wholphin. This slippery friend is the cross of a bottlenose dolphin and a false killer whale, and like the geep, it's a cross that only happens when there aren't many other options. In Hawaii, the Sea Life Park witnessed this firsthand.
Sea Life Park
The park kept one bottlenose dolphin and one false killer whale as trained animals to perform in shows for visitors, but on their downtime backstage, the two got a little frisky. Since they were in captivity, their mating options were pretty limited — and their wholphin offspring is the spitting image of them both.
Like Mother Like Daughter
The calf, which is what baby whales or dolphins are called, was born without any defects, and the mom came out fine. In fact, the hybrid wholphin gave birth to its own offspring later, and is doing well. But wholphins aren't the only animals that have conservationists scratching their heads.
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Jaglion
Due to their size and majesty, big cat hybrids continue to fascinate animal fans worldwide — and new hybrids keep popping up all the time. People are fascinated by the unique beauty of one new species: the Jaglion.
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Making New Lives
In 2006, Diablo, a black jaguar, and Lola, a lioness, became closer than close in their domestic home at the Bear Creek Wildlife Sanctuary. Together, they produced two jaglions. The mesmerizing coloration of these cats is enthralling, but there's much more to them than their spots.
Feline Fiasco
Though it's not as rare as geep for these wildcats to, erm, "mingle" when they meet, their offspring are at high risk, as well as the environment they're born into. Not only are these crossbreeds bizarre, but they're concerning, and a look at a similar animal reveals why.
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Jagulep
This animal is called the jagulep, or jagupard, and it shouldn't exist. In the wild, a jaguar and a leopard could never breed to produce a jagulep: they exist in different parts of the world, one in the western Americas and the other in Africa and Asia. But at the Chicago Zoo, this changed.
Forced Relationship
When the animals were in captivity, the zoo bred them to see if a hybrid offspring was possible. The public didn't realize that this wasn't necessarily kind to the animals, and fell in love with the strange new jagulep. But hybrids like this are often infertile, and have genetic problems.
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Liger
One famous example, and probably the most popular among these wild hybrid cats, is the liger. Napoleon Dynamite may have been a fan of these animals, but conservationists are greatly against the breeding of lions and tigers — for understandable reasons.
Big Show
The liger's giant size draws big crowds, but that'll happen when you force two large animals to procreate. From the time they're cubs, ligers' sizes cause health concerns. They're prone to being obese, and have a higher injury rate and neurological disorder rate than purebred big cats.
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Deadly Match Game
Additionally, ligers can be large even in the womb, making for a difficult pregnancy for their mothers. They may have birth defects, or the mom may not even survive giving birth. So, as cool as it may seem to breed these animals, it has to be done responsibly — not "just to see what happens".
Grolar Bears or Pizzlies
Wild cats aren't the only mammals subject to hybrid breeding: the cuddly, yet vicious, bear is also another example. The only thing that makes this case different is that the bears had a choice.
Move On Up
In their North American habitats, grizzly bears are migrating at alarming rates even farther north. On the way, some of them wind up meeting polar bears, and share something sweeter than honey: a new breed of bear cub.
Oh Bother
Known as either grolar bears or pizzlies, the offspring of the grizzly and polar bear is a new type of bear that sports a coat of brown and white fur, mottled together. Contrary to liger breeding, these guys are all-natural, and have no known health problems. However, the question remains: why the large-scale migration?
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Up-Sizing
Like any other animal, grizzlies only thrive in certain climates and conditions. With temperatures gradually rising, the grizzlies move up north to get closer to the chilly wilderness that they, and their food, prefer. They aren't the only ones moving out, though.
Coywolves
Wolves in the US and Canada have been making their way east, mostly from the southwest. When they find a new home, they also find new family in the coyotes native to the eastern climates...and you can imagine what happens next.
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Mixed Pack
Together, the wolves and coyotes create coywolves. These funky creatures aren't shy in the least! They can be found in towns, suburban areas, and forests surrounding large human populations, and the reason for this is ingenious.
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Not Picky
Like their domestic dog relatives, coywolves and their parents have realized that food is a lot easier to get when humans are around. Why hunt in the wild if humans have dumpsters and small pets to snack on? Due to their adaptation, scientists believe coywolves will be a lasting breed.
Galapagos Variations
Coywolves aren't the only animals who know how to diversify to survive. The hybrid Galapagos iguana, discovered in the same place where Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution, is a remarkable example of smart breeding.
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Passing Down Survival
In 1997, the marine iguana and the Galapagos land iguana struggled to survive following a food scarcity. The marine iguanas traveled inland to look for food, where they mated with land iguanas, creating children that could survive by eating more than just seaweed.
Zorse
Charles Darwin didn't just observe hybridization in the Galapagos, though. He also created it. In the nineteenth century, he mixed a zebra with a horse to create this equestrian beauty. Nowadays, they're extremely rare because they're either sterile or infertile.
Beefalo
These grazing animals are the offspring of American buffaloes and domestic cattle. The first accidental crossing of these species occurred about 300 years ago, but scientists deliberately engineered the specimen to help with the beef production industry in 1880.
Zonkey
This cute little four-legged fella is the cross between a zebra and a donkey. While he may be all donkey from the torso up, those striped legs scream zebra all the way.
Dzo
This animal is a cross between a domestic cow and a yak. They originated in Mongolia and Tibet. They tend to be stronger and larger than cows and yaks, and they also produce larger quantities of milk and meat.
Savannah Cat
This unique breed of cat is often compared to dogs in terms of its loyalty and intelligence, and they can even be trained like dogs as well. The breed mainly exists in the wild, and it's a mix of a domestic house cat and African wildcat.
Cama
If you mix together a male camel and female llama, you have yourself a cama. They basically look like smaller, fluffier camels. Scientists artificially reproduced them to create an animal that generated a larger amount of wool than a llama.
Leopon
The gorgeous and almost majestic coat on this animal is the result of a lioness mating with a male leopard. The very first leopon was produced in India in 1910, and by 2018, there were only 100 of them in the world.
Hinny
These mixtures of male horses and female donkeys are slightly smaller than horses, and they have thicker fur coats. They also cannot reproduce on their own, making them very difficult to obtain.
Wolfdog
You can probably guess what two animals make up this species! They were first bred together for people who wanted to own exotic-looking animals. Because they're genetic mixtures of both dogs and wolves, it's difficult to predict physical and behavioral characteristics.
Tigon
This hybrid is a cross between a female lion and a male tiger. Because they're sterile, they can only exist in captivity; however, in 1943, a female tigon actually mated with a male lion at the Munich Hellabrunn Zoo. The cubs were raised into adulthood.
Zebroid
This animal looks a lot like a horse, but that coat has zebra written all over it. Zebroid is the term given to a zebra mixed with any other type of equestrian animal — and this one looks fantastical!
Zubron
This mix was originally thought to be an optimal replacement for cattle because they were stronger and more resistant to the kinds of diseases that would wipe out entire herds. However, the only remaining zubrons exist in a small herd in Poland's Bialowieski National Park.
Narluga
Although this animal is extremely rare, there has been an increase in sightings in the North Atlantic Ocean of this narwhal and beluga whale mix. The long nose of the narwhal is missing, and the head shape is more like a beluga whale.
Mulard
This mixture of a mallard duck and muscovy duck can't create offspring. Farms commercially produce this domestic duck — a hybrid of different genera — for foie gras and lean meat.
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