Can dire animals breed with normal animals?

[Conradine]

For example dire boars and normal boars?


( extra question: since dire boar are omnivores and not too big, it's safe to assume they're the most common dire animal? )

[MisterKaws]

Dragons can breed with mosquitos, so I'm inclined to say yes.

[HouseRules]

Because of possible sever size differences in Dire Mammals with normal Animals, ...
More often then not, the mother is Dire, and the father is normal.

[Jay R]

The rules don't cover it, so this will be decided by the DM.

[Celestia]

Dragons can breed with mosquitos, so I'm inclined to say yes.
Dragons can breed with moss and plankton.

[Vizzerdrix]

Dragons can breed with moss and plankton.

Id watch that.

[Resileaf]

Dragons can breed with moss and plankton.

Dragons are horny bastards, aren't they?

[hamishspence]

Dragons can breed with mosquitos, so I'm inclined to say yes.

They're also magic.

As for dire animals, it may depend on if they're being used to represent real prehistoric animals or not. Pathfinder does this - but some of its dire animals are very distant from their regular counterparts.

For example - its dire hyena is the hyaenodon:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/hyena/hyena-dire/

which isn't even in Carnivora - it's a creodont:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyaenodon


For example dire boars and normal boars?


( extra question: since dire boar are omnivores and not too big, it's safe to assume they're the most common dire animal? )

In Pathfinder, the dire boar is also known as Daeodon:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/boar/dire-boar/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daeodon

a very, very distant relative of pigs. Slightly more closely related to whales, and hippos.

[Blackhawk748]

If it's a super sized boar? Sure, probably. If it's. Daeodon? No

[MisterKaws]

They're also magic.

There's always Druids with weird tastes, although most would prefer Fey.

[Mars Ultor]

Sometimes. Their friends set them up, they go out together a few times. Eat an adventurer for dinner by firelight, and nature takes its course.

Sure, why not? It's possible their offspring is sterile though. I'd also expect it to be pretty rare because there are probably a lot of spontaneous miscarriages when the mother is ordinary and the father is dire. The mother's body simply isn't capable of managing the size of the offspring and the body terminates the pregnancy itself. Since many animals give birth to a litter, it's possible that the mother can sustain one or two dire babies, but not the normal amount of children for their species.

I don't think it work the other way around that often as most animals (including people) are sexually dimorphic to varying degrees and that size difference is an integral component to sexual selection of a mate. It's probable that female dire animals simply won't mate with ordinary sized male animals because the males are small and that signals weakness and less chance for their offspring to survive.

[Psyren]

A common fantasy trope is to have a dire animal as the pack leader of a bunch of lesser variants. We see this in Game of Thrones for example where Nymeria ends up leading a massive pack of regular wolves, and there are countless examples in World of Warcraft also. This sort of setup feels to me like it would work better if interbreeding were possible, even if ultimately the chances of getting more dire offspring are slim.