page_title: Hybrid (biology)
section_title: In mythology
hierarchical_section_title: Hybrid (biology) / In mythology
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Buste d'une statue appartenant à un groupe représentant Thésée et le Minotaure, érigé sur une fontaine à Athènes près de St Démétrios Katéphoris à Plaka. Il s'agit d'une copie du célèbre groupe statuaire dû à Myron érigé sur l'acropole qui représentait Thésée combattant le minotaure. Musée archéologique national, Athènes, n° 1664a. English: Bust of a statue belonging to a group representing Theseus and the Minotaur, erected on a fountain in Athens near St Demetrios Katéphoris in Plaka. It is a Roman copy of the famous, lost statuary group attibuted to Myron erected on the acropolis that represented Theseus fighting the Minotaur. National Archaeological Museum, Athens, number 1664a. Part of the Theseus statue is also in the museum (number 1664).
context_page_description: In biology, a hybrid is the offspring resulting from combining the qualities of two organisms of different breeds, varieties, species or genera through sexual reproduction. Hybrids are not always intermediates between their parents, but can show hybrid vigour, sometimes growing larger or taller than either parent. The concept of a hybrid is interpreted differently in animal and plant breeding, where there is interest in the individual parentage. In genetics, attention is focused on the numbers of chromosomes. In taxonomy, a key question is how closely related the parent species are.
  Species are reproductively isolated by strong barriers to hybridisation, which include genetic and morphological differences, differing times of fertility, mating behaviors and cues, and physiological rejection of sperm cells or the developing embryo. Some act before fertilization and others after it. Similar barriers exist in plants, with differences in flowering times, pollen vectors, inhibition of pollen tube growth, somatoplastic sterility, cytoplasmic-genic male sterility and the structure of the chromosomes.
context_section_description: Folk tales and myths sometimes contain mythological hybrids; the Minotaur was the offspring of a human, Pasiphaë, and a white bull. More often, they are composites of the physical attributes of two or more kinds of animals, mythical beasts, and humans, with no suggestion that they are the result of interbreeding, as in the centaur (man/horse), chimera (goat/lion/snake), hippocamp (fish/horse), and sphinx (woman/lion). The Old Testament mentions a first generation of half-human hybrid giants, the Nephilim, while the apocryphal Book of Enoch describes the Nephilim as the wicked sons of fallen angels and attractive women.
  Human-animal hybrids portray humanity's conflicted or divided nature. For example, the centaur, which has the face, arms, and trunk of a human with the body of a horse, depicts the unbridled tendencies within humans. The sphinx, which in its Greek form has the face of a woman and the body of a lion with wings, represents the cunning, trickster side of humans. Sophocles' Oedipus narratives highlight this trait when the sphinx of Thebes poses a riddle that appears unsolvable but is solved by Oedipus. The manticore has the head of a human with three rows of shark-like teeth, a body of a lion, and a tail with venomous spines similar to porcupine quills or a scorpion-like tail. The manticore portrays the bestial and vicious nature of humans. In the Book of Revelation, hybrids portray what this world would look like if evil gained the upper hand and reigned uncontested. Specifically, the locusts of Revelation 9 are human-animal hybrids released from the abyss (the demonic underworld) and represent the reverse side of this world. Their destructive nature portrays what this world would be like if God allowed demonic powers to have free, unrestrained reign.
caption: The Minotaur of ancient Greek mythology was (in one version of the myth) supposedly the offspring of Pasiphaë and a white bull.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS CORPORATION", "Image Model": "C8080WZ", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2005:12:20 17:17:36", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 20, 0, 1, 0, 20, 0, ... ]", "Image ExifOffset": "544", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1238", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3509", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/8", "EXIF FNumber": "12/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:12:16 11:19:08", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:12:16 11:19:08", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5/2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "71/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1200", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1812", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}