Unlike in monster movies, successfully combining different species to create a new creature is pretty much impossible, even if the animals are closely related. That’s why scientists were shocked when they accidentally crossbred two completely different fish to create the ‘sturddlefish’.
The American paddlefish and Russian sturgeon are two distantly-related species that (as their names suggest) live on opposite sides of the world. They’re both endangered, and share an unusual breeding strategy.
Gynogenesis (jigh-noh-jen-ess-iss) is a process where eggs fertilise themselves in the presence of sperm. Hungarian scientists, who were trying to hatch sturgeon eggs, thought that paddlefish sperm might be able to trigger this process with no danger of interbreeding. Instead, they got hundreds of bizarre hybrid fish.
The offspring come in a range of shapes that blend their parents’ features; some look more like their mum, while others resemble their father. The scientists aren’t planning on creating anymore sturddlefish, instead returning their focus to breeding more of each species… separately.
Lachlan Writes Science 