Traits
Hybrid animals normally have traits of both of their
parents. Sometimes hybrid animals have intermediate traits, an example of an
intermediate trait is if the parents of a bird were yellow and red then the
bird would end up being orange. Intermediate traits are more common in
hybrid plants. Often hybrids will also develop one trait from each parent and
combine them together. An example of this would be in a hybrid cat if one parent
had a orange head and one parent had a black belly then the offspring would have
an orange head with a black belly. Hybridization generally does not create new
character traits because the traits of the animal are from both of its parents,
but an intermediate trait is different from both of the parent’s traits causing
intermediate traits to be new traits. In the example earlier the orange would be
the new trait because neither parent of the bird was orange.
New Traits Can Cause Health Problems
This is a picture of a male liger.
Hybrids that have traits that are outside the range of parental variation are called heterotic hybrids. An example of a heterotic hybrid is a liger because the liger is much bigger in size compared to both of its parents, the tiger and the lion. New traits developed by hybrid animals can often be harmful to their health. Ligers’ large size causes them to develop health problems and die at a younger age than most lions and tigers die at. Tigons are another form of hybrid animals. Tigons are smaller in size than their parents. This trait that tigons posses also cause them to have health problems and die, just as ligers do.