I recently found out there’s a hybrid population of iguanas living in Tucson, Arizona. They’re a cross of two Spiny-tailed Iguana species. Neither parent species is native to the area, and the population is the result of two species escaping captivity and living in a small pocket in the desert, unable to venture out. I just find it interesting as they’re not native/natural, but it’s the only place this group can be found. Technically a self-sustaining population endemic to the area. Does anyone know of any other hybrid populations, not one offs but a constant self-populating population?
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I believe there are many! I think they are quite common in the plant world (many escaped from horticulture), but I’m less knowledgeable about that. The first one that came to mind is the olympic gull, a hybrid of western and glaucous winged gull that is the “default” gull in much of the Pacific Northwest. You can use the URL filter “&rank=hybrid” to see the most common species and what exists near you:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?rank=hybrid
Edit: another good example I just remembered is that some research suggests the Italian sparrow originated as a stable population of hybrid spanish x house sparrows
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I guess that makes sense for plants, though I didn’t realize how common Olympic Gulls were until checking the hybrids tab. The Italian Sparrow is a cool, weird example looking into it. Another example is probably Townsend Angelfish (Queen X Blue Angelfish, a which shows up across the Caribbean and even is the most common angelfish in some places.
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There are a lot of muscovy ducks crossed with mallards over in a neighborhood park near where I live in Austin!
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ah, welcome to the wonderful and weird world of genetics! depending on how strictly you define species, there can be populations spanning hundreds of kilometers that are mostly hybrids (such as Rubus spp. in large parts of the eastern USA). of course, the less related the parent species, the more unlikely the children can reproduce and form a stable population.
animals’ physiology is much less forgiving of mutations/errors/change than plants’, overall. plus plants can easily handle doubled DNA, differing numbers of chromosomes, etc., more easily because of the way even ‘pure’ species reproduce.
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The Black-capped Chickadee and Carolina Chickadee ranges overlap in a small band across the U.S. and commonly mate together producing hybrid Chickadees. I don’t know whether these hybrids can reproduce, but they sure are very common within that crossover band. Most of my chickadee observations are left at genus because of how hard it is to differentiate any of the chickadees.
Here’s an article on it: Distinguishing Black-capped and Carolina Chickadees – Sibley Guides
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Is it the San Esteban Island x Sonoran Spiny-tailed iguana? I’ve seen those before!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/282677936
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A large proportion of the population of dingoes in Australia are hybrids with domestic dogs.