What do you get if you cross a cow and moose? A bit of an embarrassment it seems.

The French government has quietly killed off a rather unsuccessfully hybrid animal created in February, the half cow / half caribou Vachibou (vache being French for cow).

“The Vachibou is a hybrid animal with a very short lifespan,” a spokesman for the French consulate in Quebec says AFP. The paper refers to the short lived beast as a “chimeric hybrid”.

If this were a real animal it would have an even shorter lifespan that the incredibly short lived chameleon featured on the Great Beyond. Luckily it’s not a real animal, but an example of what happens when designers don’t check their biology facts…

It is, in fact, a logo produced by the French for their sponsored events celebrating Quebec City’s 400th anniversary. The Canadian National Post explains: “Named the Vachibou (Cowibou), the distinctive creature was intended as a hybrid of the dairy cattle of Normandy, homeland of Quebec’s original settlers, and the wild caribou that roam the Quebec tundra.”

However when it was unveiled it was noted that the antlers on the design were of a moose, not a caribou. And it was a female cow with male antlers, which seemed odd to some people.

Initial plans to redraft a more “anatomically correct” version of the animal have been shelved and the animal has quietly been put out to pasture.

See a picture of the beast here.