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Hybrid Ungulates

Discussion in 'General Zoo Discussion' started by Kawekaweau, 21 Dec 2019.

  1. Junklekitteb

    Junklekitteb Well-Known Member

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    If we're talking about bovid hybrids, here are a few I have heard of:
    Bubalus bubalis x Bos taurus
    Bubalus arnee x Bos taurus
    Bos taurus x Bos taurus (Bos frontalis ?)
    Bos grunniens x Bos taurus

    The third hybrid is considered the state animal of Arunachal Pradesh ( easternmost Indian state); I believe i have seen it displayed at my local zoo, but there is some confusion considering the difference between Bos taurus and B. frontalis.
     
  2. FBBird

    FBBird Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    I've always understood that Bubalis and Bos species cannot hybridise with each other.
     
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  3. Tim May

    Tim May Well-Known Member 15+ year member Premium Member

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    In her book Mammalian Hybrids (1971) A. P. Gray states that mating between domestic cattle and water buffalo is "not uncommon" although hybridization seems "doubtful". However she adds that an alleged hybrid was born in Askanya Nova in 1965.

    She also remarks that hybridization between water buffalo and zebu seems "unlikely".

    Gray also comments that mating between gaur and water buffalo is not uncommon but conception has never been known.
     
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  4. Andrew Swales

    Andrew Swales Well-Known Member

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    This is an interesting distinction between the physical ability to hybridise and the actual act of mating. These examples are of matings without conceptions. The reverse is often the case with equines, ie whilst the species are quite capable of producing a hybrid, they will not usually mate. Even with domestic mules, a donkey jack used to mating jenny donkeys will not normally cover a mare, and those that are needed for this use have to be trained to do so from virginity. Historically certainly in France the role of 'etalonier' was held in high esteem and surrounded by many generations of myth and superstition. Horse stallions are even more reluctant to cover jenny donkeys, which is one reason (along with the size difference) why hinnies are much rarer than mules.
     
  5. Junklekitteb

    Junklekitteb Well-Known Member

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    I've only heard of these, in honesty, but hybridization with domestic cattle is supposed to be threatening wild buffalo (Bubalus arnee).
     
  6. Junklekitteb

    Junklekitteb Well-Known Member

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  7. Junklekitteb

    Junklekitteb Well-Known Member

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    Looking up stuff on the internet, I discovered reports of claimed cow x horse or cow x donkey, jumarts. I know this is basically impossible, but there were photos of cows with horse like tails. I wonder what causes this?
     
  8. birdsandbats

    birdsandbats Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    There is a claimed Moose x Horse hybrid...
     
  9. TeaLovingDave

    TeaLovingDave Moderator Staff Member 10+ year member

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    I strongly suspect both of you are using the same notoriously anti-scientific website as a source :p which lists a lot of ridiculously far-fetched hybrids (including the ones you cite) and even posits that humans did not evolve directly from apes, but are an introgressive hybrid of pig and chimpanzee!
     
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  10. birdsandbats

    birdsandbats Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    I said "claimed" for a reason...:p
     
  11. Junklekitteb

    Junklekitteb Well-Known Member

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    No, mine was some vet trying to make a point, who knows what.
     
  12. FBBird

    FBBird Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    That would be hybridising between domestic buffalo and wild buffalo.
     
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  13. FBBird

    FBBird Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    Now why is that not just an interestingly coloured buffalo?
     
  14. FBBird

    FBBird Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    We had a buck rabbit that would happily mate with passing chickens, or even a cat if he could catch one. No hybrids were ever produced from either mating.
     
  15. Junklekitteb

    Junklekitteb Well-Known Member

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    It is an interestingly coloured buffalo. I never did say it wasn't. I was just trying to find any pictures of cow x water buffalo hybrids, and this highly suspicious one was the only one. I realize I am polluting this thread with utterly unscientific nonsense and will stop.
     
  16. TeaLovingDave

    TeaLovingDave Moderator Staff Member 10+ year member

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    Fair enough :) suspect they read that site, then!

    As for the odd buffalo, I reckon it might be an unusual domestic colour morph - interesting to see, however!
     
  17. Andrew Swales

    Andrew Swales Well-Known Member

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    Stretching this thread a little? - (but no further than pigs and chimps..!) - the original owner and founder of Stagsden Bird Gardens [F.E.B. (Fred) Johnson] had a 'thing' for colour mutations and hybrids amoungst his beloved game-birds. I remember seeing a pair (male and female) of a tri-generic and mutational hybrid between Golden x Reeve's x melanistic mutation Common Pheasants - naturally mated, but in a parental combination I cant recall. He had also used commercial domestic Turkey semen by artificial-insemination to produce Turkey x Common Pheasant and Turkey x Blue Peafowl hybrids, both of which were on display and labelled at Stagsden.
     
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  18. FBBird

    FBBird Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    Please don't stop, this is actually fun. My post about the rabbit wasn't exactly peer reviewed.
    I'm fascinated by the possibility of African Buffalo hybrids
     
  19. FBBird

    FBBird Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    I didn't know he had those Turkey hybrids, would have loved to see them. I don't suppose there's a photograph of the trigen hybrid pheasants. I remember those looking rather melanistic. I seem to remember either the original parent hybrid or the actual trigen were bred on the balcony of someone's flat?
     
  20. Andrew Swales

    Andrew Swales Well-Known Member

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    Our memories are very similar! It is difficult to comprehend now, but photography was not commonplace, and I bet there is nothing recorded. My memory of the triple hybrids was that they most resembled a Reeve's in type and size with a long flat tail, and were dark and 'smudgy' in colour, but you could see all the parents spp in them - at least once you knew!
    I don't have any memory of what the Turkey X Peafowl were like; but only as a schoolboy I can remember the two Turkey-Pheasant crosses. They were the same in appearance and presumed to be either females or asexual. The colour of a pale hen pheasant (of the Formosan/Chinese Ring-neck types) they were more pheasant like - but huge, the size of a turkey hen or peahen, if not larger, and heavy in build. For a kid who had only seen pictures in books, they reminded me of a female Capercaillie - although much paler in colour.... I guess their father was the white(?) turkey semen, but there was no mention of their mother, just a 'common' pheasant.
    ps (edit) - around the same time, as an ornament in a garden aviary, my aunt and grandparents kept a Golden x Amherst's Pheasant cock with a white Game Pheasant hen. I incubated her eggs for several years, but not a single one was ever fertile.
     
    Last edited: 23 Dec 2019