I heard something on a program today that caught my interest.

It seems many years ago, someone decided to mate a sheep and a goat with the thought of creating an animal that provided both wool and milk. They called it a "geep". Later, the name was changed to a "shoat".

I think it would be fun to come up with our own combinations!

Years ago some guys tried building a car out of junk Chevrolet parts. Half of it was a Biscayne, the other a Nova. They ended up with a Novacayne.

In the 1960s I heard the joke, "What do you get if you cross an owl with a goat?" A hootenanny!

A shoat is a young pig, usually less than a year old (M-W.com). I've never heard it used for a sheep-goat hybrid. I wonder if the story you heard is true or a figment of someone's imagination.

A liger is the offspring of a male lion and female tiger, while a tigon (sometimes "tiglon") is the offspring of a male tiger and female lion.

So would a cross between a male horse and a female zebra be a hobra, and would a male zebra-female horse cross result in a zerse?

Tinman

How about crossing a jackass with a TV evangelist? The result, of course, would be an assholier-than-thou. (I imagine it would still look pretty much like the TV evangelist.)

Or crossing a lion with a tiger to come up with a lier (a being easily confused with a TV evangelist).

How about crossing two yaks with a young cat to come up with a yakitty-yak, maybe?

The above, weak as they may be, are my own but the following is an old favorite:

Q: What do you get when you cross an atheist with a Jehovah's Witness?
A: Someone who rings your doorbell for no reason whatsoever.

Or a variation of another oldie:

Q: What do you get when you cross a TV evangelist with a skunk?
A: A dirty look from the skunk.

(Sidenote: Not long ago I had a romantic relationship blow up when I made a few caustic comments regarding a certain TV evangelist that, as it turned out, was a personal favorite of my otherwise insightful and intelligent womanfriend. Me, bitter? Naw!)

Or how about crossing a Bobolink with a sperm wHale to get a certain wordcrafter regular?

What do you get when you cross a donkey with an onion?

Most of the time you get an onion with long ears. But once in a great while, if you're really lucky, you get a piece of ass that brings tears to your eyes.

Tinman muses, "So would a cross between a male horse and a female zebra be a hobra, and would a male zebra-female horse cross result in a zerse?"

I did a little googling, and according to that unimpeachable authority the web, which has some amusing pictures: a zebra/horse cross is a zorse, and a zebra/donkey cross is a zebrass, sometimes called a zedonk. A zorse was sometimes called a zebra mule or zule, and a zebra/pony hybrid a zony, but those terms are not proper.

Here's a non-word sidebar to this, on further googling. According to the BBC, a zebra/horse hybrid can be produced only if the sire is the zebra: a zebra has 44 chromosomes; a horse has 64; and the sire must be the animal with fewer chromosomes.

But that last point seems odd to me, since a cross between a donkey (62 chromosomes) and a horse can be produced with either species being the sire.

The BBC also says that some call the zebra/horse cross a zetland.

Yet another site calls the donkey/zebra cross a "debra" and claims that the debra (unlike the donkey/horse cross, called a mule or a hinney) is fertile. I am dubious.

As to the original cross in this thread, I found the following:

quote:

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...scientists attempted to genetically cross a sheep and a goat. The results were horrifying. While the cross between a male sheep and a female goat (a "geep") was a tolerant and docile animal, yet hardy and tough at the same time (a veritable triumph of science), the same cannot be said of the male goat-female sheep combination. Due to some freak of genetic engineering, long-dormant genes in the sheep were awoken, bringing to the fore hitherto unguessed at tendencies toward violent and aggressive behaviour. The "shoat", as it has been dubbed, is a fierce almost malevolent creature which displays strongly predatory instincts.

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In the years since this original thread, scientists have successfully crossed a gorilla with a parrot. They don't know what to call it but when it talks, you'd better listen.