Is a "camelopard" part-camel, part-leopard or part-camel, part-pard?

I’m honestly not sure if this belongs more on Mythology.SE, but I think it’s (just) more of an etymology question.

The English word ‘giraffe’ derives from the Arabic word zarāfah (زرافة) which translates as "fast-walker", via the French girafe, and is first recorded in English in about 1600. Before that, the now archaic name camelopard was used. Wikipedia asserts that this is a portmanteau of "camel" and "leopard", but I’m not sure why an equally (if not more) likely explanation is that it’s a portmanteau of "camel" and "pard", a pard being (as I’m sure we all know) a mythical spotted African animal that hybridises with lions to form "leo-pards" (as helpfully explained in Pliny the Elder’s book "Natural History", chapter 17: "Lions: How they are Produced").

What evidence is there for each of these explanations? And whichever is true, has it ever been meant to imply that giraffes are literally hybrids?

(I still have some sources to follow up so I may be able to answer this myself eventually, but I also thought the story so far was odd enough to share in the form of a question.)