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From: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Cats and Rabbits
Message-ID: <42178@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 29 Apr 91 03:02:02 GMT
References: <1991Apr28.152146.1353@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>
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In article <1991Apr28.152146.1353@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> axa12@po.CWRU.Edu (Ashok Aiyar) writes:
>
>
>I have just been told that cats and rabbits can mate under 
>domesticated situations, producing offspring called "cabbits".

I severely doubt that this is true. 

>I was uder the impression that rabbits were rodents and cats were
>felines, and that such a mating could not be successful.  

Actually, rabbits are lagomorphs, and cats are carnivores.  In any
case their relationship is quite distant, and I suspect that their
genetic structures are sufficiently different that no such offspring
could be produced.

>Also I would be interested in knowing about other inter-species
>offspring such as "tigons", "ligers" and "mules".

Tigons and ligers do exist (at least according to local news
stations).  The difference between the two is whether the male was the
lion or the tiger (I don't remember which is which).  This was a
current topic here in Philadelphia a couple of years back because our
zoo had another animal (I think they called it a ligon) which was a
cross between one of these hybrids and another "pure" cat.  Sorry that
I don't remember the details any better.

Mules are crosses between horses and donkeys.  They are canonically
sterile, but I have a hazy memory that this isn't always the case
(though I'm sure it is in the vast majority of such pairings...)

>Ashok Aiyar

Mickey Rowe    (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)