• Question: would it be possible to breed 2 animals

    Asked by Katie to Steven, Sarah, Lidunka, Connor on 24 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Sarah Beasley

      Sarah Beasley answered on 24 Jun 2015:

      Like two different types of animal? There are already some hybrid animals 🙂 Have you seen a liger?

    • Photo: Steven Thomson

      Steven Thomson answered on 24 Jun 2015:

      Depends which animals! For the simple case of a male and a female from the same species, then sure. For different species, then it depends how different they are – some cross-species breeding is possible (like the lion-tiger hybrid called a liger that Sarah mentioned), but if the species are more than a tiny bit different from each other than interbreeding becomes impossible.

      The catch, though, is that interbreeding between two similar-but-different species often leads the offspring to have strange genetic defects like infertility and other health problems.

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