Are there mixed-breed fishes or birds?
Asked by
WasCy (
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February 20th, 2011
Do fish and bird species have the same kind of ‘breeds’ that dogs and cats do? You know that dogs, for example, can interbreed among different breeds to make all kinds of mixed-breed ‘mutts’. I suppose that is because the ‘species’ are the same, and the breeds are simply manipulations of various genes already extant within the species.
Are there fish and/or bird species that are similar enough, one to another, that a ‘mixed-breed’ fish or bird could be created? I don’t think this would be likely among birds without human intervention, since birds mate ‘personally’, but since most fish have females laying eggs on the sea floor and males swim over and fertilize ‘the area’, couldn’t sperm from another fish species also fertilize some eggs?
I don’t suppose we’re likely to see any guppy-sharks, but still… there could be some interesting combinations.
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14 Answers
Seems to me that “races” in birds and fish would be the equivalent of “breeds” in dogs, no? One example that comes to mind in the fish world is the races of golden and rainbow trout native to the American West.
Here’s an article that demonstrates the relationship.
They are classified as different species, but many consider the golden to be a sub-species of the rainbow. They can interbreed.
What, like flying fish do you mean?
Yes, it’s done all the time in aviculture and with fish. As a couple of examples, the Miligold Macaw is a cross between a military and a blue-and-gold macaw, the Catalina macaw is a cross between a scarlet and a blue-and-gold macaw,, and the blood parrot cichlid is a cross between Soth American cichlids, likely the severum and the Midas cichlid.
Yes… and very common. As @crisw said :)
There are about a bajillion hybridized fishes. Most being for aquacullture as said above but some are for the aquarium trade, and other are just naturally occurring.
There all lots of hybrid fish species…hybrid bass, bluegill, muskie and walleye are the ones = have caught.
Sauger and walleye will naturally interbreed to produce saugeye.
I know nothing about fish but I know there are plenty of mixed-breed chickens and ducks.
When fishing I regularly catch Common Bream/Roach hybrids here in the UK.
There are programs in the Fish and Game where they inter breed fish for a better taste and larger species. Usually though the product/species cannot produce young. There are a number of species that I catch that are just produced in the fish hatcheries in the area. I used to breed birds all the time and could produce parakeets that were special colors given a little bit of time. I actually produced a purple parakeet at one time.
When my daughter was young, we ordered chicks on line and received them in the mail. (Absolutely cool if you have the space). Anyway, I think we got about 20 and being curious we got a bunch of different breeds.
And breed they did. Since we’d ordered large and small, heavily feathered and virtually naked, the offspring were as random as you can get. An incredibly motley brood! But the eggs were just fine.
The world of goldfish, or koi has very specific breeds, along with the inevitable half-breed, and mixed breed.
Roach and Bream, Roach and Rudd and Rudd and Bream can all mate and produce hybrid offspring
Thanks, all. I really had no idea.
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