8 Fascinating Hybrid Animals With Unique Portmanteau Names

The most iconic hybrid creature is the liger, but there are several other hybrid animals you might not have heard of.

1. Wholphins

Though there have been numerous unverified sightings of them in the wild, only one pure wholphin has been confirmed: Her name is Kekaimalu, meaning "from the peaceful ocean." She resides at Sea Life Park in Hawaii. Her parents were an unlikely pair: a 2000-pound false killer whale and a 400-pound Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, who were placed in the same tank by staff, surprising everyone by mating. Kekaimalu’s unexpected birth on May 15, 1985, made headlines worldwide.

A previous wholphin was bred at Sea World Tokyo in 1981, but it only lived for 200 days. Kekaimalu, however, continues to thrive. At nearly 11 feet long, she has a lighter color than a false killer whale but darker than a bottlenose. While her first calf passed away early, her second calf lived for nine years, and in 2005, Kekaimalu had a healthy daughter named Kawili ‘Kai, fathered by a male dolphin.

2. Camas

In 1999, Dr. Lulu Skidmore and her team at Dubai’s Camel Reproduction Center worked to create a hybrid animal that combined Old World camel and New World llama traits. The goal was practical: "The main aim was to see if we could get the best of both species," she said. "We thought [that] the long coat of a llama and the strength of a camel would make for a very useful animal."

It was soon discovered that male llamas were unable to impregnate female camels, and attempting the reverse was anatomically unfeasible. Ultimately, Skidmore and her team resorted to artificial insemination to impregnate a female camel. The result was a male hybrid, named Rama. Since his birth, a few more camas have been born using the same method.

3. Cattalo

Over the last two centuries, ranchers have successfully crossbred American bison with domestic cows. One such rancher, Charles Jesse “Buffalo” Jones, from Kansas, recognized that cattle were poorly adapted to the harsh winters of the Great Plains. He believed that hybrids would be better equipped to survive.

In 1906, Jones began crossbreeding the two species on a tract of land near the present-day Grand Canyon National Park, where the resulting cattalo became a nuisance. (Don’t confuse them with beefalo: Cattalo are hybrids with a predominantly bison appearance, while beefalo are only three-eighths bison.) As park superintendent Dave Uberuaga told the Associated Press, "The massive animals have reduced vegetation in meadows to nubs, traveled into Mexican spotted owl habitat, knocked over walls at American Indian cliff dwellings below the North Rim, defecated in lakes, and left ruts in wetlands."

4. Leopons

In Africa, leopards and lions often come into contact, making the possibility of a wild hybrid a reality. However, all known leopons have been bred in captivity, with the last recorded leopon passing away in 1985. These creatures, with their brown spots and reddish-yellow coats, were larger than typical leopards, almost the size of lionesses, and featured tufted tails. Male leopons, similar to their lion ancestors, sported beards and manes.

5. Coywolves

If you reside in eastern North America, you may have encountered one of these hybrid canines. Often referred to as woyotes, they are a mix of western coyotes and eastern grey wolves. The origins of this hybrid can be traced back to when European settlers first arrived. These settlers, seeing eastern grey wolves as a nuisance, nearly drove them to extinction. As the wolf population diminished, coyotes from the west began to fill the void. Eventually, they infiltrated one of the last wolf strongholds: southern Ontario.

Between the 1950s and the '70s, this region likely became the birthplace of the coywolf. These new creatures boast longer legs, larger paws, stronger snouts, and fluffier tails compared to regular coyotes. Like wolves, they can hunt in packs, but unlike wolves, who struggle in urban environments, coywolves have adapted remarkably well to city and suburban life.

6. Zonkeys

Donkey-zebra hybrids have existed for a long time, with Charles Darwin even mentioning them in the 1859 edition of On the Origin of Species. Like mules, zonkeys are typically sterile, though Darwin did document a zonkey that successfully mated with a mare, resulting in a cross of three equine species. Since then, no one has been able to breed a zonkey with another animal, including other zonkeys. At one point, zonkeys could be seen in zoos in Mexico and Italy.

7. Yakow

Another bovine hybrid, the yakows (also known as dzo and dzomos), are commonly found in Nepal. Larger and stronger than both yaks and cows, these beasts of burden also yield much more milk. At high altitudes, yakows are the perfect livestock: They combine the yak’s ability to thrive in thin air with the cow’s agility. Farmers have discovered that while males are unable to reproduce, the females are capable of doing so.

8. Grolar Bears

A 2013 study conducted on brown bears residing on Alaska's Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof Islands revealed that all of the bears carried some DNA from polar bears—traces of their interbreeding during the last Ice Age.

Due to climate change, the habitats of grizzly and polar bears are increasingly overlapping. The outcome? An increase in muscular, sand-colored grolar bears. According to Brendan Kelly, a marine biologist at the University of Alaska, free-roaming grolars are a relatively recent phenomenon. "We’ve known for decades that, in captivity, grizzly bears and polar bears will hybridize," he explained to PSMag. However, wild grolar sightings weren’t confirmed until a hunter shot one in 2006, and DNA tests revealed its surprising heritage.

Grolar bears typically exhibit both a grizzly's hump and a polar bear’s elongated neck. Zookeepers have observed that those in captivity tend to act more like polar bears. When given a new toy, they will stomp on it with both front paws, much like polar bears do when breaking into seal dens.