The major importer in the early 90s primarily shipped in Central African & and Algerian hedgehogs.

 

What's the difference between subspecies and hybrids?

 

A subspecies is where a group of the species has been isolated and evolved to be just different enough (in markings, behaviors, etc.) to become a subspecies of the main species. For example, barn owls are found worldwide, but there's at least 20 subspecies based on slight variations in coloring in populations found in different countries/continents. The genes are still pretty much exactly the same, there's just slight variations due to being isolated from another population of the same species.

Hybrid is an animal that's from two different species bred together - most of them come from human interference, I believe. Examples would be a mule (horse/donkey), liger (lion/tiger), etc. The two species' genes are close enough that offspring can be produced, but in the wild, those species generally wouldn't mate due to behavior differences, different ranges, etc. Like Haley said, most hybrids aren't fertile - you'd have to breed the two original species in order to get the hybrid again.

Hopefully that explanation actually makes sense...I'm not always good at explaining things. :lol:

 

So, are dog or cat breeds hybrids, or subspecies? The colourations, shapes, sizes, and attitudes vary substantially between breeds, yet they are clearly capable of cross-breeding (between dog breeds or between cat breeds, not terrifying cat-dog hybrids!).

 

I think they'd be considered subspecies, just extremely varied subspecies? The same with other domesticated animals like cows, sheep, horses, pigeons, chickens, etc. We call them breeds, but I think they'd also be subspecies. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong, I'm mostly guessing on this one!)

 

This is an interesting read about cat breeds vs subspecies.

http://www.messybeast.com/breed-subspecies.htm

 

So, at this point, would it be more accurate to describe domesticated hedgehogs that were produced via breeding several subspecies of smaller hedgehogs (including the Central African and Algerian varieties) together?

The whole thing about hybrids having reduced fertility also seems to be more "rule of thumb" than hard reality. Female grizzly-polar bear hybrids can be fertile, and at least one female lion-tiger hybrid (ligers) has been bred with a lion to produce liligers.

It also seems like a wide swatch of the canis genus (wolves, coyotes, jackals, dingos and domestic dogs) can all breed and produce fertile young, yet clearly dingos are not the same species as wolves. I wonder if the hedgehogs are more like that -- extremely closely related species that can interbreed without any noticeable impact on fertility?

 

Any offspring from 2 animals with different genuses are considered hybrids. From what i read, domesticated hedgehogs came from hybridizing 4 genus of wild hedgehogs. Hybridization among animals has long been an issue of endless debates.

Also, hyrid animals does not have scientific (Latin) names as they are out of the taxonomy tree. As a result they are named according to their color forms. Simply put, any animal without a scientific name is a hybrid.

 

Intresting. Thanks!

 

I noticed that in scientific journals the common name "Africian Pygmy Hedgehog" was used for Atelerix albiventris, so I wondered about the whole hybrid thing.

I also noticed a footnote that mentioned misidentification of some hedgehogs, where they were identified originally as the Atelerix algirus when they were actually Atelerix albiventris.