A crossbreed is an organism with purebred parents of two different breeds, varieties, or populations. Crossbreeding, sometimes called "designer crossbreeding", is the process of breeding such an organism. While crossbreeding is used to maintain health and viability of organisms, irresponsible crossbreeding can also produce organisms of inferior quality or dilute a purebred gene pool to the point of extinction of a given breed of organism.
A Cockapoo is a Poodle/Cocker Spaniel cross
An Anglo-Arabian horse is a Thoroughbred/Arabian horse cross
The National Show Horse was developed from crossbreeding programs in the 1970s and 1980s that blended Arabian horse and American Saddlebred bloodlines
In biology, a hybrid is the offspring resulting from combining the qualities of two organisms of different varieties, species or genera through sexual reproduction. Generally, it means that each cell has genetic material from two different organisms, whereas an individual where some cells are derived from a different organism is called a chimera. Hybrids are not always intermediates between their parents, but can show hybrid vigor, sometimes growing larger or taller than either parent. The concept of a hybrid is interpreted differently in animal and plant breeding, where there is interest in the individual parentage. In genetics, attention is focused on the numbers of chromosomes. In taxonomy, a key question is how closely related the parent species are.
A mule is a sterile hybrid of a male donkey and a female horse. Mules are smaller than horses but stronger than donkeys, making them useful as pack animals.
Liger, a lion/tiger hybrid bred in captivity
Oenothera lamarckiana is a permanent natural hybrid, studied intensively by the geneticist Hugo de Vries. Illustration by De Vries, 1913.
Hybrid between Lady Amherst's pheasant (Chrysolophus amherstiae) and another species, probably golden pheasant (Chrysolophus pictus)