Hybrids

This word is often used to describe an animal or a plant whose parents belong to two different species. 

One of the best known examples is the mule, which results from the mating of a male donkey and a female horse. Mules are usually of animals but like nearly all animal hybrids, they are sterile. 

This means that they cannot have offspring themselves.

Many plant hybrids are fully fertile and many of our cultivated plants including most of our cereal crops are hybrids. 

Plants resulting from crossing to different varieties of the same species are also called hybrids and like those between different species, they are often bigger and stronger than their parents. 

Producing plant hybrids can be a long process and plants of the same species are in bread for several generations to give plants with pure heredity lines. These plants are then crossed with other inbred plants. 

Plant breeders work hard to produce hybrids of this kind in their search for bigger and better flowers and vegetables for the garden and the commercial market. 

Hybrids were also bread specially which have greater resistance to particular diseases.

A horse is strong but needs high quality food. A donkey is much weaker but can live on a poor diet. The mule is a hybrid of the two that combines the advantages but it cannot breed.

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