I'm engaged in a little discussion in the religions boards about evolution. In searching for an answer to a question, I came across a webiste that says that the Soviets and Chinese performed experiments to inseminate apes and chimps with human semen, and actually were successful (with human semen inseminated into a female chimpanzee, acutally), but that the mother was killed before the fetus was born.
Is this true?
Is it actually possible for a human to impregnate an ape or chimp or vice versa? I thought you couldn't mate outside your genus. Can anyone clarify? What would happen if someone actually did this?
Posts: 2241 | Location: In between | Registered: 06-03-02
Do you have the link to that site? Sounds weird. ********************************************************* 1-10-05, 03:04 AM tsaeb Wow! If this were the case, then for people with cats and dogs at home, there would already be cat-dogs . . . or would they be dog-cats? Also (unfortunately), I'll bet my snack foods that human males have engaged in bestiality (I think that's what it is called), and still we have not heard of any newfreaks having been brought to term and birthed.
(Big Grin couldn't help myself Big Grin)
11-10-05, 07:16 AM methos No. Although chimps are the most similar to humans, there are enough dissimilarities (starting with humans having a different number of chromosomes than chimps), that interbreeding can't happen.
As for how this relates to evolution - the split between humans and chimps was far longer ago than, say, the split between donkeys and horses which can produce an offspring. Even they are separated by enough time and are therefore sufficiently different that their offspring is deffective - it can't reproduce.
11-10-05, 09:40 AM Sarai Thanks, Methos. I thought it sounded too weird to be true. Smile
11-10-05, 10:45 AM Sarai Tsaeb, I think they would be either cogs or dats. Smile
Hey, what's dat? Just a cog. Big Grin
11-10-05, 01:31 PM DorianGreyed "In July 1984, Krause, a female mule, made the AP news-wire. Krause gave birth to a foal sired by a donkey named Chester. This being a million to one event, the owners named the foal Blue Moon. In 1987 Krause gave birth to White Lightning." - eclectica.org
"Near Champion, Neb., the owners of a mule named Krause saw things differently when she produced a foal, Blue Moon, in 1984. They saw it as an event blessed enough to be announced from the pulpit of the United Methodist Church in Imperial, Neb. In 1987 Krause produced another foal, White Lightning.
While hybrids from parents with different number of chromosomes can reproduce (horses have 64, donkeys 62), obviously, such an event is extremely rare. I knew that a mule had given birth, but it took a while to find a site that mentioned it. Most sites say it is impossible. I didn't see any hinnies mentioned as having birthed.
Other example of uneven chromosome birth - (Different species of zebras have a different number of chromosomes; the Grevy's zebra has 46 chromosomes, the Mountain zebras has 32, while the plains hve 44. )
Zenkey foal a hybrid star
August 29, 2003 A Japanese safari park says it will put a zebra-donkey hybrid, believed to be the world's only living "zenkey", on public view next week.
"As we keep herbivorous animals without separating them, the unbelievable can happen," said Osamu Ishikawa, deputy head of Nasu Safari Park, 150 kilometres north of Tokyo.
"A donkey was pregnant and everybody was expecting a donkey foal," he said, adding that keepers had been surprised to see a striped animal born on August 8.
The male foal, now weighing about 25 kilograms, has ears like a donkey and looks as if it is wearing striped leggings. It also has a black cross mark on its withers characteristic of donkey foals.
Although it is extremely rare, donkeys and zebras can produce offspring because they belong to the same horse family. - SidneyMorningHerald.com.Au
-------- Zebra hybrid is cute surprise
A Shetland pony on a UK farm has surprised its owners by giving birth to a half-zebra foal.
The hybrid animal, now a week old, appears healthy and is bouncing around its paddock at the Eden Ostrich World, at Langwathby Hall Farm, near Penrith, Cumbria.
A cross between a horse and a zebra is rare but by no means unheard of. Colchester Zoo in Essex has had three zeedonks - crosses between a Chapman's Zebra and a black ass - since 1983.
The Cumbrian foal would probably be called a zorse, although some commentators have suggested it might better be termed a zetland. - News.BBC.co.UK -------- Baby wholphin just having a whale of a time A RARE whale-dolphin mix has given birth to a playful female calf, officials at a Hawaii water life park have revealed.
The calf was born on December 23 to Kekaimalu, a mix of a false killer whale and an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, at Sea Life Park Hawaii. Officials waited to announce the birth because of changes in ownership at the park.
The young as-yet unnamed wholphin is one-fourth false killer whale and three-fourths Atlantic bottlenose dolphin. Her slick skin is an even blend of a dolphin’s light grey and the black colouring of a false killer whale. - News.Scotsman.com
Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), false killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens) -------- In sub-Saharan Africa, several African clawed frog species have interbred so successfully that at least seven new species with distinct genetic makeup have been created. The original species had 36 chromosomes; five new species have 72; and two more species have 108. - Zinkle.com --------
The false killer whale is the only member of the Pseudorca genus, and the okapi (Okapia johnstoni) is one of the two remaining species of family Giraffidae, the second being the giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis). So, H. Sapiens is certainly not alone as the only member of its genus.
11-10-05, 03:01 PM methos Interesting, DG. I hadn't heard of fertile mules.
Nonetheless, I, and I think biologists, would be shocked if there were ever a successful breeding between humand and apes. The genetic differences between chimps and humans are more significant than that 98% (or 99%, or 95%, depending how you count) makes it sound. Of course, I'm just a chemist, so I tried to find a biologist's opinion. Professor Michael Skinner, director of the Center for Reproductive Biology at Washington State University, says no (through Dr. Universe, a kid's column at WSU).
If so, reading other articles in the magazine makes it sound like a supermarket tabloid with a bit more jargon.
11-11-05, 01:06 PM bunkboy The definition of "species" (one of many competing definitions, actually), is:
A mating group.
That means that a living thing is grouped where it looks for mates (this has both behavioural and physical connotations).
When trying to prove whether a new species has been produced, one of the tests is whether the new living thing will go back to mate with the old group, whether it will be accepted, and whether the mating will produce viable offspring.
If there is mating isolation, and if the new "thing" is viable as far as reproduction it concerned, it is deemed a new seperate species.
If chimps and humans can produce an offspring, it might mean that we are one and the same species, and that would sort of blur the entire science and render the entire science of speciation "specious".
11-12-05, 03:47 AM tsaeb I can't decide whether this thread is hilarious or scary.
11-12-05, 09:53 AM DorianGreyed "If chimps and humans can produce an offspring, it might mean that we are one and the same species,..."
It might, if the definitions were changed. But, since donkeys and horses, zebras and Shetland ponies, dogs and wolves, false killer whales and dolphins, lions and tigers, and many other examples of different species have produced offspring, and the scientific community has not seen fit to change the species name of the lions, tigers, wolves, dogs, etc., apparently the ability to mate with another non-identical animal is not included in the definition of species. So even if chimps and humans were able to mate and produce offspring, that would not prove that they are the same species.
If so, reading other articles in the magazine makes it sound like a supermarket tabloid with a bit more jargon.
No, the one I saw was on some kind of biology chat site, similar to this but all about biology. I can't find it now, but it was basically the same story. Maybe that's where the poster got it from. The strange thing was that no one contested it - it must not have been a very reliable biology chat site!
Tsaeb-
quote: I can't decide whether this thread is hilarious or scary.
I agree! Think it is scilarious, or maybe hary! Big Grin (Seriously, though I agree - it is creepy but sort of funny at the same time. Doing searches for it on the internet is especially horrible. Searching for it seems to bring up nothing but racist websites and pornography. I don't recommend it. I quickly stopped searching and came here to ask instead, just to avoid having to burn my eyes out! Eek).
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
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