What's the difference from Subspecies, hybrids, cross, breed, selective breed..etc. in animals.?????

Question

What's the difference from Subspecies, hybrids, cross, breed, selective breed, distance relative, close relative..etc. in animals

are they all the same or different? and tell me why their different.

Answer 1

A subspecies is a population of animals which has slight differences to other populations of the same species, brought about by the pressures of its particular environment, but is not different enough to be considered a different species. For example, there is only one species of tiger, Panthera tigris, but there are several subspecies - they can all interbreed with each other and produce fertile offspring, but there are slight differences between them. The Siberian tiger, Panthera tigris altaica, is larger than the other subspecies, with thicker, lighter-coloured fur and a fold of fat along the belly, all adaptations to its environment which tigers in other places do not have.

A breed is a variety of domestic animal which has been selectively bred by humans for certain characteristics - for example, German Shepherd and Rottweiler are breeds of dog, Shire and Arab are breeds of horse, and so on. Selective breeding means a human decides which animals breed with which, depending on which traits they wish the offspring to have. Let's say you wanted to breed larger dogs - you would mate the largest male with the largest female, producing larger puppies. You would then breed the largest of these puppies with the largest of another litter (or sometimes with one of its relatives, though such inbreeding can produce detrimental results), producing even larger offspring. Over time, you would end up with larger and larger dogs.

A hybrid is the result of mating two different species. A mule is the best-known example - it is the offspring of a male donkey and female horse (the offspring of a male horse and female donkey is called a hinny). Only closely-related animals can breed - usually they must be in the same genus (like horses and donkeys, which both belong to the genus Equus), and at the very least they must be in the same family. Even then, hybrids are usually sterile, a result of the parent species having different numbers of chromosomes. You can also call a hybrid a cross - e.g. a mule is a cross between a donkey and a horse.

A crossbreed is the result of mating two different breeds of the same species. For example, if two different dog breeds mated - say a German Shepherd and a Rottweiler - the offspring would be crossbreeds. They can also be called mongrels or mutts.

Closely related and distantly related refer to how recently in its evolutionary history an animal diverged from others. For example, a lion is closely related to other members of the genus Panthera, such as tigers - lions and tigers shared a common ancestor more recently than, say, lions and cheetahs. Lions and cheetahs are still related, both being members of the cat family, Felidae, but the last common ancestor they shared was longer ago. Even further back in time, cats shared an ancestor with other members of the Feliformia (cat-like) branch of the order Carnivora, such as hyenas and mongooses, and further back still, with the Caniformia (dog-like) branch of the Carnivora, such as dogs and weasels. These animals are all more closely related to each other than they are to, say, humans. Our ancestors diverged from theirs millions of years before they diverged from each others'.

Answer 2

A subspecies is a part of a species with some common distinctive characteristics from other members of that species.

Hybrids are the offspring of members of two closely related species, such as the mule being the product of mating a horse and a donkey.  A cross results in a hybrid.

'Selective breed' doesn't mean much.  'Selective breeding', on the other hand, is the practice of somebody selecting which particular organisms mate.

'Distance relative' is probably supposed to mean 'distant relative'.  It refers to a common descendant of an ancestor which lived lots of generations ago.  For examples, dogs and cats are related as they're both carnivoran mammals.  Therefore, they share a common ancestor that was a member of Canrnivora.  However, as that ancestor lived tens of millions of years ago, their relationship is distant.  Thus, they're distant relatives.

Living wolves and domestic dogs share a common ancestor (a wolf or, more probably, a number of wolves), and it lived within the last ten thousand years or so.  Consequently, they're close relatives.