Buffalo-horse Hybrids

Mammalian Hybrids

EUGENE M. MCCARTHY, PHD GENETICS, ΦΒΚ
A diligent scholar is like a bee who takes honey from many different flowers and stores it in his hive.
John Amos Comenius

A buffalo-horse hybrid was reported on page 6, column 3, of the July 8, 1890, issue of the Herald Democrat, a newspaper published in Leadville, Colorado (source).

Half Horse, Half Buffalo

     Frank Fraundfelter, of Easton, Pa., owns an animal that he calls a buffalo horse. It was born in Texas twelve years ago, is 15 1/3 hands in height and weighs 1,160 pounds. [Adult male Clydesdales measure 17 to 19 hands (1.7-1.9 m or 5.7-6.3 ft.). A male’s average weight is between 771 to 998 kg (1,700-2,200 lb.).] It is covered with a coat resembling coarse buffalo fur in close curls eight inches long, growing equally thick and long on all portions of the body and legs. In the winter the hair grows much longer. This long, curly, buffalo hair gives the horse a remarkable appearance, the more so as the hair on the legs is as dense as on any other part, making them look like four thick fur-covered poets. In its gait it resembles a cow more than a horse. Nevertheless it is said to be a good roadster and has the pulling power of a mule. The shape of the animal’s head is distinctly that of a buffalo, and in lieu of a mane there is an extra growth of brown hair. In its hindquarters also the horse closely resembles the buffalo.

The news report below is also about a buffalo-horse hybrid. However, it does not give the names of any of the actors in the story. It would therefore be unreliable even if the hybrid described were ordinary, which of course it is not. The story appeared on the front page, column 6, of the July 25, 1892 issue of the Grand Rapids Herald, a newspaper published in Grand Rapids, Michigan (access source). It also appeared in numerous other newspapers around the United States. This account is included here, not because it is reliable, but rather because it is the only other report about such a hybrid encountered in a search for reports of avian and mammalian hybrids that has lasted for many years. As such, it needs to be filed away under the heading of this cross.

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dog-cow hybrid A dog-cow hybrid?

An old (1889) mention of a buffalo-horse >>

Table of contents >>

Bibliography >>

Biology Dictionary >>

By the same author: Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World, Oxford University Press (2006).


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