A reconstruction of one of the hybrids described in the reports below. Image: E. M. McCarthy

Fish-cow Hybrids

An interclass cross

Mammalian Hybrids

EUGENE M. MCCARTHY, PHD GENETICS, ΦΒΚ

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Sir, to leave things out of a book, merely because people tell you it will not be believed, is meanness.

—Samuel Johnson

Caution: The allegations made in the various reports quoted below, claiming the occurrence of this distant cross, have not been confirmed via the genetic testing of a specimen.

There are few reports about fish-cow hybrids. And yet, given that this is a cross that many biologists would consider impossible, there are more than most people would imagine.

One such notice appeared in The Somerset Herald (Sep. 24, 1890, p. 2, col. 3), a newspaper published in Somerset, Pennsylvania:

A Legless Fish-Calf Freak

Winnipeg, Man., Sept. 18.—A strange freak of nature is reported from Raven Lake, Manitoba. A cow belonging to James Snyder gave birth to a legless calf. The body is long, with a large tail, by which it propels itself. Its head and neck are natural. It bawls and drinks milk, but in other ways resembles a large fish, and is called the “fish calf.” It has projection[s], on each side which resemble fins.

Bartholin
1616-1680

An early case. The Danish physician and anatomist Thomas Bartholin (Historiarum anatomicarum rariorum, 1657, vol. 4, LVI, p. 224) describes a mackerel caught in Norway that had the head of a calf attached.

The following notice about a fish-cow hybrid appeared in the New Castle Courier (Mar. 6, 1891, p. 8, col. 4), a newspaper published in New Castle, Indiana:

Merrit Nicholson reported a case to your correspondent which reveals one of the strangest freaks of nature that we have ever heard of or even read about. Daniel Wantz, who lives on the farm formerly owned by John Turner, has a cow that a few days ago gave birth to two calves and a monstrosity. The monstrosity was unlike anything ever yet heard of. A head like a calf, but had no legs, and its body from its shoulders tapered back like that of a fish. There were no appendages to the body whatever, but from its shoulders back it had the exact shape of a large fish. It was not alive, and was destroyed, which was very unfortunate.

In classical times an animal of this kind, with the foreparts of a cow and the hind parts of a fish, was known as a taurokampos (see images below). The reverse configuration (fish foreparts with bovine hind parts) was reported in The Superior Times (Mar. 1, 1879, p. 2, col. 7), a newspaper published in Superior, Wisconsin:

A cow belonging to Mr. Winchester, the big Whitewater^† manufacturer, gave birth to a monstrosity the other day, it being a two-legged calf with a queer head, having fins like a fish. Of course the wonderful calf failed to live, though as far as it went it was perfectly matured.

† Whitewater is a city in Walworth and Jefferson counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin.

The following notice about a calf born with a fish mouth (compare the case below of a lamb born with a fish mouth) appeared in The Indianapolis Journal (Oct. 12, 1889, p. 2, col. 4), a newspaper published in Indianapolis, Indiana:

A cow belonging to Mrs. Brown, of Scott Township, Harrison County [Indiana],^‡ gave birth to a calf the other day which has four eyes, four nostrils and four ears, and a mouth like a fish. The monstrosity is yet alive and a large number of persons have gone to see it.

‡ Although there are other Scott Townships in Indiana, this Scott Township, in Harrison County, no longer exists. It lay on the right bank of the Ohio River at its juncture with the Blue River, and was probably wiped out by the great 1937 flood of the Ohio River. At nearby Louisville, Kentucky, the Ohio crested that year at 57 feet, which would have been enough to annihilate any riverside community without a levy.

Fish-sheep hybrids

Capricorn, a fish-goat hybrid, the tenth astrological sign in the zodiac.

Another report about a bovid-fish hybrid, this time involving a sheep rather than a cow, appeared in the Saint Mary's Beacon (May 25, 1893, p. 3, col. 3), a newspaper published in Leonard Town, Maryland.

Mr. John Wheatly, of St. Inigo's Neck [Maryland], recently owned a lamb, a fully developed one, which had a mouth similar to a fish of the carp species, and its eyes and ears were located near the pharynx.

The following report about a fish-sheep hybrid appeared in The Commonwealth (May 30, 1907, p. 4, col. 4), a newspaper published in Scotland Neck, North Carolina. It originally appeared in the Rocky Mount, North Carolina Record.

Freak in a Lamb

Rocky Mount Record

Mr. Ed Taylor has had on exhibition the past few days, in a store on Tarboro Street [in Rocky Mount], an abnormal freak of nature in the shape of a lamb that does not have any legs at all or shoulder blades. It would naturally be supposed that there would be some place for legs, but such is not the case. It has a well developed body, resembling in shape a fish. Mr Taylor secured it from Mr. William Edwards, who lives about 12 miles from Rocky Mount in Nash County [North Carolina]. The latter found it on the 13th day of last February. He had no idea that the animal could live but placed it in charge of his wife, who fed and took care of the same as she would a child, and it has grown to a good size animal. Mr. Taylor intends to take it to the Jamestown Exposition.^*

* The Jamestown Exposition was one of the many world’s fairs and expositions that were popular in the United States in the early part of the 20th century. Commemorating the 300th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown in the Virginia Colony, it was held from April 26 to December 1, 1907, at Sewell’s Point on Hampton Roads, in Norfolk, Virginia.

An incertae sedis case: A furry fish >>

Table of contents >>

Bibliography >>

Biology Dictionary >>

By the same author: Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World, Oxford University Press (2006).

A taurokampos, a bull with a fish tail on an ancient Roman mosaic table (Museo Nazionale Romano, Italy; source).

Another taurokampos (mosaic slab, Museo Nazionale Romano, Italy; source).

A nereid riding a fish-bull hybrid (Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus, Roman, 2nd half of the 2nd century BC; source).

A fish-goat hybrid with humanoid characteristics, as pictured in Conrad Gesner's early encyclopedia of zoology Historia Animalium (Book IV, p. 1197). Gesner, who seemed to accept that such strange mixes actually exist, called this creature an ichthyocentaurus.

Capricorn, the tenth astrological sign of the zodiac, is a fish-goat hybrid (source of image: "Capricornus", plate 25 in Urania's Mirror, a set of celestial cards accompanied by a familiar treatise on astronomy ... by Jehoshaphat Aspin. London. 1825).