The same question could be asked of mating a monitor and a tegu.
We could see just how close that convergent evolution was
I dunno much about Tegus, and I am certainly no expert of reptiles, however, I would guess that a Columbian and Argentine tegu could be crossed. Like someone said above me, the genes must match from each species.
For example, humans have 46 chromosomes. Upon inspection you might think that an ape and a human could mate but we cannot because apes only have like 30 something. (I'm no geneticist either :( )
However, if the number of chromosomes are very similar, a hybrid can still happen, but the offspring will most likely be sterile. This would most likely be the case for Tegus since there seem to be no hybrids found in the wild.
Courtesy of Wikipedia:
* Dog hybrids are crosses between different breeds and are often bred selectively.
* Hybrid Iguana is single cross hybrid, result of natural inbreeding from male marine iguana and female land Iguana since late 2000s.
* Equid hybrids
o Mule, a cross of female horse and a male donkey.
o Hinny, a cross between a female donkey and a male horse. Mule and Hinny are examples of reciprocal hybrids.
o Zebroids
+ Zeedonk or Zonkey, a zebra/donkey cross.
+ Zorse, a zebra/horse cross
+ Zony or Zetland, a zebra/pony cross ("zony" is a generic term; "zetland" is specifically a hybrid of the Shetland pony breed with a zebra)
* Bovid hybrids
o Dzo, zo or yakow; a cross between a domestic cow/bull and a yak.
o Beefalo, a cross of an American Bison and a domestic cow. This is a fertile breed; this along with genetic evidence has caused them to be recently reclassified into the same genus, Bos.
o Zubron, a hybrid between Wisent (European Bison) and domestic cow.
* Sheep-goat hybrids, such as the The Toast of Botswana.
* Ursid hybrids, such as the Grizzly-polar bear hybrid, occur between black bears, brown bears, Kodiak and polar bears.
* Felid hybrids
o Savannah cats are the hybrid cross between an African serval cat and a Domestic cat
o A hybrid between a Bengal tiger and a Siberian tiger is an example of an intra-specific hybrid.
o Ligers and Tigons (crosses between a Lion and a Tiger) and other Panthera hybrids such as the Lijagulep. Various other wild cat crosses are known involving the Lynx, Bobcat, Leopard, Serval, etc.
o Bengal cat, a cross between the Asian Leopard cat and the domestic cat, one of many hybrids between the domestic cat and wild cat species. The domestic cat, African wild cat and European wildcat may be considered variant populations of the same species (Felis silvestris), making such crosses non-hybrids.
* Fertile Canid hybrids occur between coyotes, wolves, dingoes, jackals and domestic dogs.
* Hybrids between Black Rhinos & White Rhinos have been recognized.
* Hybrids between spotted owls and barred owls
* Cama, a cross between a Camel and a Llama, also an intergeneric hybrid.
* Wolphin, a fertile but very rare cross between a False Killer Whale and a Bottlenose Dolphin.
* A fertile cross between an albino King Snake and an albino Corn Snake.
* The Wurdmann's heron, a cross of the white heron and the great blue heron.
* At Chester Zoo in the United Kingdom, a cross between African elephant (male) and Asian elephant (female). The male calf was named Motty. It died of gut infection after twelve days.
* Cagebird breeders sometimes breed hybrids between species of finch, such as Goldfinch x Canary. These birds are known as Mules.
* Gamebird hybrids, hybrids between gamebirds and domestic fowl, including Chickens, Guineafowl and Peafowl, interfamilial hybrids.
* Numerous Macaw hybrids are also known.
* Red Kite x Black Kite: 5 bred unintentionally at a falconry center in England. (It is reported that the black kite (the male) refused female black kites but mated with two female red kites.)
* Hybridization between the endemic Cuban Crocodile (Crocodilus rhombifer) and the widely distributed American Crocodile (Crocodilus acutus) is causing conservation problems for the former species as a threat to is genetic integrity. [2]
* Blood parrot cichlid, which is probably created by crossing a Gold Severum and a Midas Cichlid or Red Devil Cichlid
Hybrids should not be confused with chimaeras such as the chimera between sheep and goat known as the geep. Wider interspecific hybrids can be made via in vitro fertilization or somatic hybridization, however the resulting cells are not able to develop into a full organism. An example of interspecific hybrid cell lines is the humster (hamster x human) cells.
Also from Wikipedia:
A number of conditions exist that limit the success of hybridization, the most obvious is great genetic diversity between most species. But in animals and plants that are more closely related hybridization barriers include morphological differences, differing times of fertility, mating behaviors and cues, physiological rejection of sperm cells or the developing embryo
I have been wondering this for a while also, if someone has more information I would be very grateful for the knowledge! Perhaps it would be possible to create very docile golds, or large golds, or maybe a gold/black/white AND blue tegu
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