In my sleep-deprived state, I got to wondering about house cats cross breeding with wild felines, and if it’s even possible. Has anyone tried (Okay I’m sure some twisted soul with access to the lion cage at the zoo has, but have there been any documented cases)? Is there a chromosome match up? I know it’s possible with lions and tigers (but not bears, sadly).
And moreover, what would you name the infernal offspring? House lion/tiger/cougar/saber-tooth?
We had one of these as a patient at the vet clinic I used to work at. They’re a cross between an african serval and a house cat. Pretty cool.
My understanding is that as long as two species are in the same Genus, they can successfully produce offspring.
Although that’s sometimes true, it’s not really anything like as simple as that.
Wild felines, yep. There are numerous hybrids between house cats and wild feline species.
Big cats. Nope. Too much genetic distance between them.
It has been tried on a few occasions that I know of. No luck.
Chromosome numbers vary, but that;snot really a major concern. A great many species have mismatches in chromosome numbers and are interfertile. The problem lies in the number of genes that have jumped to unrelated chromosomes. If the offspring don’t get at least one copy of every chromosome it’s just not viable, and since chromosomes tend to migrate around over time species that diverged along time ago tend to cease t be interfertile.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Many bear species are interfertile and produce hybrids quite readily.
A Serval is not a big cat, it;s a small cat. Hybrids between small cats are common as muck. Last time I bothered looking there were at least 9 species that hybridised with house cats, and 6 of those could be purchased in pet chops… There are probably over a dozen by this.
Nope. Many species in the same genus are infertile ( eg Kangaroos and wallaroos). Many species in completely different genera, or even different families, are perfectly interfertile and produce viable young to the Nth generation (eg cattle and bison, pheasants and chickens.)
Genus is a human construct and only provides basic very basic information on interrelatedness. Interfertility is much more complicated than that.
It was a (lame) attempt at a joke. Lions and tigers can breed together and produce ligers or tigons. Attempting to cross breed a lion or a tiger and a bear would result in a bloody mess.
Thanks for the informative answer, though. I didn’t any sort of reply until much later.
Oh my!
Not a big cat i grant you but wild cats, definately yes.
The Asian Leopard Cat is a wild cat roughly the same size as domestic species and was (and still is) mated with domestic breeds to produce a new domestic breed - Bengal.
There are four genera of felid:
Felis, the house cat, wildcat, serval, caracal, ocelot, and all the other small to medium size cats, plus the cougar (puma, mountain lion). The bobcat and lynx are generally considered to belong to Felis, although a very few authorities place them in a separate genus Lynx.
Neofelis, the clouded leopard of the Himalayas.
Panthera, including lion, tiger, leopard, and essentially all the other “big cats,” including the jaguar, the only New World representative of Panthera.
Acinonyx, which is solely the cheetah, a species that seemed to have evolved on the principle, “Let’s see how different from other cats I can get while still remaining a cat?”
Linky no worky. Try this: Savannah cat - Wikipedia
As long as we’re linking to wikipedia:
And of course, Polycarp’s listing of Felid genera is a traditional one, but there are as many ways of divvying up the Felids into genera as there are Felid taxonomists. Or more.
The convention is to take part of the name of the father and add on part of the name of the mother:
Male lion x Female tiger = liger
Male tiger x Female lion = tigon
If you could produce a hyprid cat/lion, you might call it a caon or a liat, depending on the species of its father/mother. Similarly, a hypothetical human chimpanzee hybrid would be a chuman or a humanzee. (How you doin? 
)
Maybe not, if they were both horny enough.
I should point out that Bengals aren’t a cross between a domestic cat and an Asian Leopard Cat in the way that ligers or tigons are a cross between a lion and a tiger. A cross between a domestic cat and an Asian Leopard Cat is an F1 hybrid. Male F1 hybrids are sterile, but the females can be bred with a domestic cat to produce an F2 hybrid, and so on (eventually you get a cross where it’s likely that males will be fertile). Only F4’s or later can be registered and shown as Bengals in The International Cat Association. So any Bengal you are at all likely to see is at most 1/16 Asian Leopard Cat, 15/16 domestic cat.
And Straight Dope Administrator, don’t forget.
So, another name for a mule would be a honkey?
Actually, there’s a hypothetical product of breeding a lion, a tiger, and a bear (not sure if this requires creation of a single creature with 3 parents, or breeding 2 of them, and breeding the third species to the offspring of the other 2). The literaturedescribes this as an omai (Omai? sp?).
What? 
on preview, mangetout has clearly already researched this but I’m the one who posted the cite, so there!
Anecdotal to be sure, but a friend had a cat whose conformation and traits hinted strongly at a domestic shorthair/bobcat cross. Mom was a tuxedo barn cat who lived out in the boondocks of Amador County, CA and she had just one very large kitten, named Stencil. He was a rough furred, huge footed, tuft eared, short tailed grey/black/cinnamon tabby who had to be handraised from early kittenhood as his mother disappeared when he was about three weeks old–could’ve been a hawk or coyote that got her, who knows? He grew to be enormous, twenty pounds and stocky, but never got over the need to suckle on earlobes–it was a trifle disconcerting to those who didn’t know the beast to have him bully his way onto a lap, place his oversized paws one either side of the neck and then snerkle away on the ear, purring and drooling… Most people were afraid to move him because he was an imposing critter, but he was one of the most affectionate and least aggressive cats I’ve ever known. I wonder whatever happened to him…
Years ago I was joking with a guy at work who is a keen dog breeder. I said that I had a brilliant plan to get rich - cross breed pit bulls with cavalier king charles spaniels. I would then end up with the perfect guard dog - the aggressive looks of a pit bull with the placid nature of a king charles spaniel. He replied, “Or the opposite.”
Years ago I was joking with a guy at work who is a keen dog breeder. I said that I had a brilliant plan to get rich - cross breed pit bulls with cavalier king charles spaniels. I would then end up with the perfect guard dog - the aggressive looks of a pit bull with the placid nature of a king charles spaniel. He replied, “Or the opposite.”