Hybrid Ungulates

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.
 
Junklekitteb said:
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.
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I've always understood that Bubalis and Bos species cannot hybridise with each other.
 
Junklekitteb said:
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
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FBBird said:
I've always understood that Bubalis and Bos species cannot hybridise with each other.
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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.
 
Tim May said:
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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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.
 
FBBird said:
I've always understood that Bubalis and Bos species cannot hybridise with each other.
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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).
 
Jafarabadi buffalo - Wikipedia
Supposed hybrid between Syncerus caffer caffer and Bubalus bubalis.

images

Supposed Bos x Bubalus hybrid.
 
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?
 
Junklekitteb said:
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?
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birdsandbats said:
There is a claimed Moose x Horse hybrid...
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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!
 
TeaLovingDave said:
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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No, mine was some vet trying to make a point, who knows what.
 
FBBird said:
Now why is that not just an interestingly coloured buffalo?
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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.
 
Junklekitteb said:
No, mine was some vet trying to make a point, who knows what.
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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!
 
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.
 
Junklekitteb said:
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.
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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
 
Andrew Swales said:
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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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?
 
FBBird said:
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?
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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.
 
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