Animal Farm

Hybrid animals could be looked at as a form of animal kingdom creativity. Why have two separate animals when you could mix two and create one? With artistic vision and a splash of linguistic license, real life animal cross-breeding has resulting in the fantastic sounding ‘liger’, a cross between a lion and tiger, and the ‘yakalo’, a yak/buffalo combo.

Today, I started thinking about the hybrids I’d like to see. Maybe the ‘snish’, that’s a snake and a fish, or the ‘Seatle’, a seagull and beetle. Designer James Bourne had a similar idea when he set a project for school children to image a combination of their two favourite animals. Picking the most imaginative combinations he drew them, and then Mouldy Loaf put them on a childrens t-shirt. If you get one of these shirts you can spend hours trying to work out the new hybrid animals. I can spot a ‘CrocaBee’ (crocodile/bumblebee), and I think there might be a ‘Tortoose’ (tortoise/goose) there too, but some of them are too bizarre to decipher. In fact, I think one of them might be a plant. Just think, the children who had these animal visions are going to be the scientists of the future, so lock up your pets.