Question: is it possible to create a griffon from a lion and an eagle?

Barbara Shih answered on 11 Mar 2015:

I don’t think you’ll have much luck with getting a griffon by mixing lion and eagle DNA together; I don’t think there is a gene that allow the bones to grow into wing structures. You are probably better off mutating thousands and thousands (maybe millions) of fertilised lion eggs (preferably already engineered in mutations for extra limbs/polymelia), select for the rare mutations that give them unusual extra wing-like bone structure, and then mutate the offspring of these more (not sure how many generations you would need, maybe a few hunreds), until eventually when you get lions with functional wings. Don’t think there has been a 6-legged vertebrates species so there might be a serious genetic problem with that. After that, it would probaby be possible alter the fur gene based on the eagle genes to make the fur on the wings are more like eagle feather. (I forgot about the head/beak. Will probably need to do similar multi-generation/selective breeding steps described for the wings, will be hard/very unlikely though…)

Of course that’s completely theoretical and I’m not specialised in genetic engineering.