Why Can't Mules Have Babies?

A mule is a hybrid animal that is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Mules are known for being hardy, docile, and intelligent. They are often used for tasks such as pulling carts, carrying people, and tilling soil.

If you want to learn more about this topic, here are some handy keywords to get your googling started: 

  • Hybrid organisms: The offspring of two animals or plants of different breeds, varieties, species or genera.
  • Mitosis: A process of cell division that produces copies of the original cell.
  • Meiosis: A process of cell dividion that produces new daughter cells with half the chromosome number of the original cell.
  • Sex cell, or gamete: a cell that fuses with another cell during fertilization (conception) in organisms that sexually reproduce.
  • Hemiclonal transmission: The rare occurence in which only maternal DNA gets passed along during the creation of sex cells.

 

Species featured in this video:

  • Mule, is the offspring of a male donkey (jack) and a female horse (mare)
  • Liger,  is a hybrid cross between a male lion (Panthera leo) and a female tiger (Panthera tigris)
  • Zonkey, is the offspring of a zebra and a donkey. Zebra hybrids are generally known as zebroids
  • Beefalo, also known as cattalo, is the offspring of a domestic cattle (Bos taurus) and an American buffalo (Bison bison)
  • Cama, is the offspring of a male dromedary camel and a female llama.