- What do you get when you cross a beast with another beast?
Nature can be freaky, so it only makes sense that the creatures living in nature occasionally get freaky as well. Sometimes, two animals of different species end up doing the deed and producing offspring.
That little freak of nature is called a hybrid. Some hybrids are very well known and even intentionally produced, like mules.
Others, however, are more unusual. Here are six examples of the weirder hybrid animals out there — and one totally bizarre case of two organisms joining as one.
1. Liger
Let’s kick things off with something you might have heard of: the liger. As you may guess from the name, this beast is the result of a male lion and a female tiger getting busy.
Curiously, ligers grow much larger than either of their parent species. In fact, they are the largest of all known living felines.
Although they’ve been known since the 1800s, it’s virtually impossible for ligers to occur naturally, since lions and tigers live in completely different places. There’s a slight chance a stray tiger could by some miracle wander into the territory of Asiatic lions living in India, but there’s no record of that ever happening.
Fun fact: the offspring of a female lion and male tiger is called a tigon and it looks completely different from a liger.
2. Beefalo
Beefalo sounds like some kind of a monstrous burger, but it’s actually a hybrid between cattle and the American bison. So, you take the beef of the cow and mash it together with a buffalo to get beefalo.
Like ligers, beefalo has probably never occurred naturally. It was created through managed breeding programs to create a creature whose meat would combine the characteristics of beef and bison.
In that sense, you might find a beefalo in a burger. As another curious note, if the cow-bison hybrid looks more like a bison than a cow, it’s called a cattalo (after cattle and buffalo).
Who comes up with these names?
3. Pizzly Bear
Speaking of dumb hybrid names, meet the pizzly bear. You can also call it a grolar bear, a grizzlar, or a polizzly. Good grief.
In any case, the pizzly bear is a hybrid of a grizzly and a polar bear. Unlike the previous two hybrids, pizzlies are naturally occurring.
They used to be extremely rare, but in recent years, pizzly sightings have become more commonplace (although still not normal). People studying the phenomenon suspect that climate change might be bringing polar bears and grizzlies into more regular contact as polar bears migrate south and grizzlies venture further north.
As a result, we may get to say “pizzly” a lot more in the future.
4. Wholphin
No, a wholphin is not the result of the unholy union between a wolf and a dolphin. Instead, it’s the crossbreed of a dolphin and a false killer whale.
See — whale and dolphin become a wholphin. It’s kind of redundant, considering dolphins are whales.
Although they may have happened in nature, the first known wholphin was born in Tokyo SeaWorld in 1981. Since then, more wholphins have popped up in various other aquariums.
Interestingly, wholphins are not sterile. As a result, one wholphin can keep producing more, considering it finds dolphins that find it attractive.
5. Zebroid
A zebroid isn’t just one creature — it could be several. The word refers to any offspring produced by a zebra and any other equine.
The name changes based on the combination of different horse-like beasts. A male zebra and a female horse will create a zorse, while a male donkey and a female zebra result in a donkra, and so on.
It seems equines are fairly compatible with each other since zebroids have been known for ages. For example, the seemingly endless possibilities puzzled Charles Darwin as he was working on his theory of evolution.
6. Dogxim
The dogxim is the first known hybrid between a dog and a fox. Or perhaps we should say that it was.
For the longest time, it was a generally accepted fact that dogs and foxes couldn’t produce offspring that would stay alive. That theory went down the drain when they found and adult dogxim in Brazil in 2021.
It was going to be a sensation. Sadly, the seemingly completely healthy animal died under mysterious circumstances earlier this year while staying at a conservation center.
The death of the dogxim made such an impact that Brazilian authorities have launched an official investigation to find out what happened to this unique creature.
Honorable Mention: Green Sea Slug
Technically, the green sea slug isn’t a hybrid, because hybrids have to be born through sexual reproduction. But it’s such a bizarre creature that we’re featuring it anyway.
And what makes it so weird? Well, the green sea slug is part animal, part plant.
The slug eats photosynthesizing algae and incorporates some of their genes into its own body. As a result, the slug learns how to produce chlorophyll and synthesize sugars from sunlight — like a plant.
That means the slug doesn’t necessarily need to eat. As long as it gets 12 hours of sunlight a day, it can stay alive by producing all the nutrients it needs for its lifespan.
Oh, and they pass the chlorophyll-producing genes on to their own offspring. What a weirdo.