A Turtle-sheep Hybrid?
Mammalian Hybrids
EUGENE M. MCCARTHY, PHD GENETICS, ΦΒΚ
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I am obliged to report that which is reported, but not to believe it.
—Herodotus, The History, VII, 152
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Note: Any claim that hybrids can actually be produced from this disparate and poorly documented cross would require confirmation from a specimen.
The following transcript is of an odd story that appeared in the Clarksville, Tennessee, Weekly Chronicle (Apr. 12, 1873, p. 2, col. 3):
A strange monstrosity was born on the farm of Wm. E. Davis, in Mercer county [Tennessee], a week or two ago. It was the offspring of a cotswold ewe and was more like a turtle than anything else. In shape it was nearly round and flat, with a crust on the back. The only wool it had was a small tuft on the back of a small curiously shaped head. The feet set out at the sides like those of a turtle. Mr. Davis can only account for the monstrosity from the fact that the ewe must have been frightened when with lamb by a turtle in the branch which flows through the pasture.
Other reports about turtle-mammal crosses.There are also reports about turtle-cow hybrids. And there are even reports about turtle-human hybrids. In addition, there is an old report about a turtle-seal hybrid brought to shore in Baltimore in 1840.
Sheep-pig hybrids?
By the same author: Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World, Oxford University Press (2006).
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