Cat - Tasmanian devil hybrid!

A neat bit of photo-editing no more. You certainly can't mate a Tasmanian devil with a domestic cat and if you could I don't think the appearance would be like this. It works really well as a photoshopped image though. The person who did it is mentioned in the image.

Why can't different species of animal crossbreed? They do sometimes but if successful the offspring are often sterile. For example, the first filial offspring of a mating between a serval, which is a medium-sized wild cat species, and a domestic cat, are sterile. I'm talking about the F1 male Savannah cats.

The reason why entirely different species cannot mate is, I believe because the chromosomes are not the same or very nearly the same. During the process of meiotic cell division, chromosomes have to line up in pairs. When the number of chromosomes is very different this is impossible.

And when they line up, they have to have nearly identical genes and these pairs of nearly identical chromosomes are called homologous chromosomes. So, unless the animals have the same number of chromosomes and the same number of genes on the chromosomes, they will not be able to breed. That is my understanding of it, but I would welcome the input of somebody else.