A rare sheep-goat hybrid has been found in Germany. The six-month-old animal born on a farm in Deiderode, central Germany is demonstrably a “geep,” said livestock researcher Professor Christoph Knorr from the nearby University of Goettingen.
Such a cross is extremely rare. Sheep and goats belong to the same caprine subfamily, but they have a different set of chromosomes.
While goats have 60 chromosomes, there are only 54 in sheep, making crossbreeding very difficult.
Researchers in Goettingen will continue to study the animal, the only scientifically confirmed one of its kind in the world currently.
