Interbreeding with Animals

If a human were able to mate with a chimp to produce an offspring, what would it look like? Would it look like Eddy Munster, or a pygmy African, or a monkey with a moustache and straight legs in a suit, would it look like the Geico caveman, thoughts?


oliver1.jpg
 
It's oliver. People thought he was a hybrid. But it turned out he wasn't.

There was a Russian guy attempting to make a hybrid in the early 1900s. No success.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee

weird link annyway this paragraphe sounded intersting enough
Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells
 
In addition to the Tourmai fossil, US genome experts believe that the species associated with the chimpanzees and proto-humans split interbred over a long period of time, swapping genes, before making a final separation. A paper, whose authors include David Reich and Eric Lander (Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)), was published in journal Nature in May 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae[/URL]

All species somewhere should have the ability to interbreed otherwise the evolution proces would be extremly difficult. But you don't really hear much of hybrid homidae.

Homo sapiens are not able to interbreed successfully with any other primates because they have diverged so far away from other species that their chromosome can no longer match up. this is not a "bold" call.

In the wiki article cited above, do not confuse the term "proto-humans" with humans. The prefix "proto" simply means that they are referring to the ancestral species: not today's Homo sapien. Sure, back then, at some point in time, the ancestral species of Homo sapiens could interbreed with the ancestral chimpanzee species because back then the ancestral species were one and the same. They were a different ancestral species than today's human and chimp. The rate of divergence has progressed over too long of a time period for interbreeding to produce any hybrid. This is common in most species, but not all, as has been pointed out above.
 
Homo sapiens are not able to interbreed successfully with any other primates because they have diverged so far away from other species that their chromosome can no longer match up. this is not a "bold" call.
Could you explain the haploid-diploid mechanisms involved here please?

In the wiki article cited above, do not confuse the term "proto-humans" with humans. The prefix "proto" simply means that they are referring to the ancestral species: not today's Homo sapien.

So is there a difference between pre-humans and proto-humans in this context?

Sure, back then, at some point in time, the ancestral species of Homo sapiens could interbreed with the ancestral chimpanzee species because back then the ancestral species were one and the same. They were a different ancestral species than today's human and chimp. The rate of divergence has progressed over too long of a time period for interbreeding to produce any hybrid.

Are these assertions reflected in the human and pre-human phylogeny and genome?
 
Wow zenbab, you sound like a school marm.

No...I sound like a scientist...this is after all a forum on Biology and Genetics.

It may appear school marmy to you but I am more than happy to accept such ridicule from the likes of you in order that science become transparent.

Going off the OP again IAC?
 
wait the point was that those 2 species could interbreed
225px-OrangutanP1.jpg
220px-Man_of_the_woods.JPG



Okay neather of them is human but their still somewhat closer to humans then cats. Like previously mentioned.
 
Mammal chromosomes are all diploid except for the X - Y sex cells, which are haploid. Plants evolved a different method of reproduction whereby the diploid generation first forms sporophytes. The sporophytes generate the haploid generation (spores) via meiosis. The spores undergo mitosis prior to the occurrence of fertilization, which is different than in humans. The origin of the haploid sex cells is a completely different subject and arose from a mutation in unicellular gametes over 2 billion years ago.

PLANTS DO IT DIFFERENTLY
In animals, the body grows to adulthood; in the adult body there are specialized locations where
Reduction Division (Meiosis) occurs to produce special cells with half the normal amount of genetic material
(chromosomes). These special cells are called gametes (sperm or egg cells) because they can directly engage
in fertilization. Fertilization involves pooling the chromosomes of the egg and the sperm to produce a
fertilized egg having once again the normal chromosome content, and thus a normal new individual results.
Plants are different! A multicellular plant body does have specialized locations where Reduction
Division produces special cells containing half the chromosomes, but these special cells are unable to engage
in fertilization themselves. Thus these special cells are called SPORES. These spores must first grow into
another multicellular structure, which then produces the sperm or egg cells that can undergo fertilization.
Thus, in a complete plant life cycle there are TWO different multicellular structures:

--the fertilized egg grows into one structure called the sporophyte which produces spores;
--the spores grow into another structure called the gametophyte which produces the gametes (sperm or egg).

The plant life cycle thus has two different alternating multicellular structures, and is therefore referred
to as “Alternation of Generations”.
C:\Documents and Settings\Kodi\My Documents\Plant Reproduction - Alt of Gen, Gymnosperms, Angiosperms.pdf

Origin of sex/haploid gametes - isogamy to oogamy:
"Isogamous sexual reproduction occurs through "plus" (MT+) and "minus" (MT-) mating types. MT- represents a "dominant sex" because a particular gene, MID ("minus-dominance") of Chlomydomonas reinhardtii [a primitive unicellular Green Algae] is both necessary and sufficient to cause the cells to differentiate as MT- isogametes. The "PlestMID" gene is present only in the male genome, and it encodes a protein localized abundantly in the nuclei of mature sperm. The findings indicate that P. starrii maleness evolved from the dominant sex (MT-) of its isogamous ancestor." Source: Nozaki, Hisayoshi, et. al. (2006) in Current Biology, December 19th issue


Composite (left) and reconstructed (right) skeletons of D. szalayi, the oldest known ancestor of primates:
070201_primitive_primate_02.hmedium.jpg


They made the rare discovery of the nearly complete skeletons of two plesiadapiform species (above), now named Ignacius clarkforkensis and Dryomomys szalayi, embedded in limestone outside Yellowstone National Park. "The branches of that tree which includes humans, chimps, gorillas, baboons, and lemurs, can all be traced back 55 million years ago, when the first undisputed primates appear in the fossil record....Primates must have acquired their traits gradually, because plesiadapiforms have some, but not all, of the characteristics of primates"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17010079/


Archaeologists in Italy have discovered a couple buried in eternal embrace: still hugging 5,000 years ago:
070206_embrace_vmed_1p.widec.jpg
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17011786/
 
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Homo sapiens are not able to interbreed successfully with any other primates because they have diverged so far away from other species that their chromosome can no longer match up. this is not a "bold" call.
Well, it's unsupported at least.
You could certainly be right, but how can you be sure?

Google says that Chimps and Humans split maybe 7 million years ago... but horses and donkeys split maybe 3 million years ago (I had thought it would be longer than that). This is suggestive, but is it definitive?

I know nothing about genetic biology, so as far as I know there could be some definitive evidence of incompatibility in the human and chimp genomes (is there?)... but otherwise, I'd have thought that in-vitro attempts at making a hybrid zygote would be the only definitive test.
 
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would it be possible to edit the number of chromosomes in one animal to match another then breed them to form a new species?
 
would it be possible to edit the number of chromosomes in one animal to match another then breed them to form a new species?

Hi Gizzy - Would it be (scientifically) ethical to do this? If it could be argued that it was: How do you propose to edit the chromosomes?
 
Well I'm no scientist. I'm just pondering the idea.
Is it possible at all? Is what I mean. Can it be done?
 
No, it is not "unsupported." It is a widely accepted fact within the advanced academic biological community. I just know this from studying so much biology, and you pick up a lot from other people that you won't find in textbooks. And if you've read enough about the history of man - and what I mean by the history of man is not the biological record, but man since the dawn of written history - then you'd know that men have already copulated with just about all, if not all, every known species that they have been able to put there ... into. Even in the Bible it says that the closest thing to a female human vagina is a lamb or a female sheep (ewes) and there are many accounts in the Bible where men did this. There are also many accounts of guys having sex with dead animals (narcissism or just sick?). We had a seminar last year where the visiting prof told us that one of her colleagues got bored at night in the lab and decided to look at his own sperm under the microscope (hmmm. Wonder how he got it there? In the lab?). The reason she brought it up was purely for scientific reasons because she was pointing out the high percentage of mutant sperm he found with three flagella. But from studying genetics and paleontology so much, you can easily calculate these divergent rates. The chromosomes can no longer match up with any other species'.

FYI: The reason I posted the fossil comparison above was not to support any argument, but to share new discoveries with you guys. I should have stated this in the post. The discovery of the plesiadapiform primate species Dryomomys szalayi is ground-breaking news. This is an entirely new fossil that now pushes the entire primate lineage back 10 million years to 55 mya. This news just came out yesterday. It's exciting!
 
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