Can Different Species Produce Fertile Offspring?

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scameter18

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In school, I was always taught that when two different species mate, they may produce offspring (such as a mule) but it will never be fertile, capable of producing more of its own kind. Further, if animals of two different genus mate, they will produce no offspring. Is this true? I include when a species like a mule breeds with one of its constituent parent species, such as a horse, but I particularly mean when such a species breeds with its own hybrid kind.

Again please avoid discussing evolution. This is simply a biology question.
 
scameter18 said:
In school, I was always taught that when two different species mate, they may produce offspring (such as a mule) but it will never be fertile, capable of producing more of its own kind. Further, if animals of two different genus mate, they will produce no offspring. Is this true? I include when a species like a mule breeds with one of its constituent parent species, such as a horse, but I particularly mean when such a species breeds with its own hybrid kind.

Again please avoid discussing evolution. This is simply a biology question.
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The answer appears to be “yes.” According to the Wikipedia article on ligers (crosses between a male lion and a female tiger), the male ligers are sterile, but the female ligers are fertile and have produced offspring, when bred with a male lion.

Interestingly, the ligons are huge; the article said that they are as big as both of their parents put together.

DaveBj
 
God’s peace. The whole “species problem” is a complicated one in biology, as there seem to be exceptions to everything. Yes, there are cases where apparent species can cross and produce fertile offspring: dogs, wolves, and coyotes are all interfertile but rarely mate in nature (wolves detest dogs and coyotes). Of course, if you define a species as members of one or more populations that are only fertile with members of these populations, then you have locked out this possibility by definition.
By the way, it really isn’t feasible to treat species fairly without bringing in evolution. To a modern biologist, that’s how species come to be. Blessings, ~Br. Carlo~
 
It seems that between species of the same genus (lions, tigers - felines), male hybrid offspring are never fertile, while females can occasionally be. However, this is usually rare. For example, most female mules (I forget the specific name) don’t even have a uterus. But between different genuses, if offspring even can occur they would always be infertile. Of course, I also asked if, for example, two mules mated, could they produce offspring? Every case I have seen of hybrid offspring being fertile was due to their mate being one of its parents’ species, not its own hybrid kind.

I asked to avoid evolution because this Philosophy forum asked to, not out of personal bias or preference.
 
scameter18 said:
It seems that between species of the same genus (lions, tigers - felines), male hybrid offspring are never fertile, while females can occasionally be. However, this is usually rare. For example, most female mules (I forget the specific name) don’t even have a uterus. But between different genuses, if offspring even can occur they would always be infertile. Of course, I also asked if, for example, two mules mated, could they produce offspring? Every case I have seen of hybrid offspring being fertile was due to their mate being one of its parents’ species, not its own hybrid kind.

I asked to avoid evolution because this Philosophy forum asked to, not out of personal bias or preference.
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I wouldn’t be so quick to reason from the specific to the general, but in what we’ve looked at so far, that’s pretty much it. There may be other genera where cross-species matings produce fertile males; I personally don’t know. But in cats, male hybrids seem to always be sterile, while the females are fertile. And even in cats a mating between two hybrids would be unfruitful because the males are sterile. As I recall, both male and female mules are sterile, so it wouldn’t matter what they mated with.

DaveBj
 
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