An overview on species hybridization in animals

Abstract

Species hybridization is the breeding between two distinct species that produce progeny, regardless of the fertility of progeny. It occurs worldwide either spontaneously due to habitat fragmentation and the small population size of animals or by captive breeding where progenies of combined ancestry utilize hybrid vigour to improve their performances in comparison to their parents. However, the reproductive and fitness traits in progeny were found to reduce greatly due to their uneven number of chromosomes and the interaction between genes received from parents. The paper in this context gives a brief knowledge of the various aspects of species hybridization and hybrids found all over the world.