Tatiana's marten/sable hybrid caught my interest. Since we/she doesn't want to distract from the "unusual thread I started this.
So, if there is interbreeding between species are they really 2 distinct species? The wolf/dog crosses my mind. Are wolves really a distinct species?
Tatiana, withe the Sable being such a high value fur and Russia having an almost monopoly on them, wouldn't the managers be worried about diluting the sable quality?

I really should read the other thread titles before posting, I just posted on the other thread suggesting she start one on this subject.

I'll try, but I'll have to find and take some pictures to illustrate. These things require lots of pictures

Inbreeding, is not two different species breeding. Two different species breeding is called hybridization. I don't know what the pros and cons are of high breed marten.

interbreeding is a synonym of hybridization, a slightly wider term in fact because it can refer to the mixing all types of distinct groups, including those below the species level (e.g. interbreeding of two diffrent subspecies is not hybridization). It's not the same as inbreeding. Inbreeding produces Somalians.

I will try to share what I know. This is a picture from last year taken by a good acquaintance who lives near Uvat, on the Irtysh river, in a hybridization hotspot. The mixes there are almost 50/50 sable/marten. Where I live now it's mostly marten, and where I used to live before was mostly sable with an occasional mixed blood individual.
This batch is a grader's nightmare. Some are phenotypically 100% marten, some are 100% sable, and lots of very obvious inbetweens of different kinds. Currently, sable is almost twice as expensive as marten so it makes a difference. Takes a trained eye though. I'll try to explain but it will take a few separate posts I guess.