I am always keen to learn but to me this line states crossing different animals and plants. Offspring from a dog and a cat is a hybrid, not crossing different varieties within a species. Wikipedia says
Hybrid (biology), the offspring resulting from cross-breeding of different plants or animals.
I still don't fully get my head around how or what makes one carpet python a different species to another, let alone understanding the actual definition of the word hybrid. But I have always understood the term hybrid as cross breeding two different species. But this is for another thread. Let's get back to the gorgeous puppy
Okay, let's look at your own example, the one on Wikipedia (if anyone wants to verify this, here is the link:
Hybrid (biology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )
Wikipedia gives the definition of hybrid in the introduction, to the very fundamental level; the single gene level. A hybrid is heterozygous (eg, a het for albinism) while a non hybrid at the single gene level is homozygous (eg an albino or a normally colour animal which is not het for albinism). So, quite correctly, it points out that if you were to cross an albino with a regular animal, the offspring would be hybrids.
This argument keeps on coming up again and again and again on this forum, because reptile people seem to insist on believing that "hybrid" means "interspecific hybrid". It does not. A hybrid between two different species is an interspecific hybrid (for example, a Carpet Python and a Green Python). A hybrid between two different subspecies is an intersubspecific hybrid (eg, a Carpet Python from Darwin and a Carpet Python from Brisbane). A hybrid between two different genera is an intergeneric hybrid (for example, a Woma crossed with a Carpet Python), etc etc etc. The greater the difference between the parents, the more extreme the hybrid.
For an example of a very mild hybrid, a human with curly hair crossed with a human with straight hair will produce hybrid offspring with wavy hair - this is hybridisation at the single gene level, the mildest level of all (this is the same level of 'het for albino' hybrids).
A 'breed' is a form of domesticated animal, such as a German Shepherd dog or a labrador, or an Isa brown chicken or leghorn chicken. Crossing breeds produces hybrids at a level in between single gene and species.
All hybrid means is that the parents are different in some way.
