If a male gorilla copulates with a woman would she get pregnant? and when are hybrids possible?
This has not been researched. Human-gorilla, Human-chimp or Human-orangutan hybrids might be possible, or might not be possible, but no scientist has ever published the results of such research, because of the ethical issues involved.
The larger question, when are hybrids possible and when are they not possible, is unanswerable. We just don’t know enough to formulate a general rule. All we can say is that closely related species are usually interfertile, some crosses producing fertile hybrids and some sterile hybrids. The less closely related two species are, the less likely it is that hybrids will be produced.
So lions, tigers and leopards all produce fertile hybrids. Donkeys and horses produce sterile hybrids. And even distantly related species such as llamas and camels can produce hybrids (Cama (animal) - Wikipedia).
And wikipedia again comes to the rescue. I present: Humanzee - Wikipedia
We don’t know, but there are many large mammals who are at least as distantly related as humans and chimps (putting gorillas aside for the moment) who can successfully interbreed. It’s certainly in the realm of possibility, although it’s also quite possible that any offspring would be sterile.
A lot more often than people think. Llamas and camels, lions and tigers, flase killer whales and atlantic bottle nosed dolphins… the list goes on.
A couple other things to think about:
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The sperm first needs to survive inside the female and be able to penetrate the outer layers of the ovum. That might cause some problems that could be easily overcome in the lab.
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Humans and chimps (as well as gorillas) have a different number of chromosomes. That may or may not be a problem (horses and donkeys differ in the number of chromosomes), but it should be noted that the human chromosome number 2 is made up of the fusion of two ancestral chromosomes that survive as separate entities in chimps (and gorillas) as their chromosomes # 2a and 2b.
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Humans and chimps diverged from each other about 6M years ago. We both diverged from the gorilla line about 1M years earlier. We know that Chimps and Bonobos produce fertile offspring, but they only diverged from each about 2M years ago. If chimps and gorillas could hybridize, it would be very likely that humans could hybridize with either species.
Didn’t Stalin order some research on this?
Supposedly there was some research done in the former USSR (1920 or 30s, IIRC), but I don’t think it was well documented.
I think I saw some advertisement on the History Channel recently that they were going to have a 30 or 60 minute program about the research done back then.
I’m sure it was played up to lure viewers though. Probably is sketchy evidence at best.
Well, the wikipedia article claims that some shenangigans were going on during the Stalinist era. But with no published results. So perhaps it’s not technically true that there has been no research in the area.
Scary thought regarding the ape/human cross question:
Since the notion and people’s curiousity about the possibility have existed for at least a couple of centuries, with human nature being what it is the experiment has almost certainly been performed in the past – and probably more than once.
One just knows that in those atrocity situations like Experiment Station 731 and the Nazi death camps, where scientists had unlimited human subjects and weren’t answerable for their treatment, there must have been some more-inquisitive-than-ethical researchers who took advantage of their opportunity to pursue the issue – for better or worse, no records of the experiments have survived or come to public view and so the question is still open for the moment.
Josef Mengele would psychologically torture female “patients” by showing them pictures of apes and telling them they’d been artificially inseminated with their seed.
I wouldn’t be too sure. Artificial Insemination for humans was developed around the time of the war, so it would’ve been a pretty new procedure. And the Germans were notoriously good record keepers. If they did it, it would probably have been documented.
Remember that you’ve not only got to have psychopath “scientists” and an unlimited supply of prisoners that can be abused at whim, you’ve also got to have apes. Josef Mengele might have been able to torture prisoners in any way he saw fit, but that doesn’t mean he could order the delivery of fertile male chimpanzees, or chimpanzee sperm. How many chimpanzees were available in Germany during WWII, and even if there were several, how could a concentration camp comander justify to his superiors moving chimpanzees from the zoos to the camps?
Is there any DNA transplanted into a human from an animal by a retrovirus, or human DNA in any animals? I have heard that cats have some baboon DNA, and cows have some plant DNA of some sort?
Not in all cases; there are documented cases of fertile female mules, producing offspring both naturally and using modern science.
I suspect that, with enough cases and enough study, there will be a few cases of fertile hybrids of other species showing up too.
I agree with John.
I’d also say that in the case of “natural sex” the answer is no. However, in the lab, I think it could be done.
Another way to look at it is to ask this question: Are there any two large mammal species which are genetically/evolutionarily closer to each other than humans are to chimps and which cannot hybridize?
Would anyone really be surprised if chimps and gorillas could hybridize? I wouldn’t, considering all the different mammal species that can.
Or maybe Ft. Lauderdale or Tijuana during Spring Break.
I think “natural sex” between a human and a chimp would be next to impossible. I’m not sure you could get a male chimp to mate with a human female and if a human male tried to mate with a chimp female, the chimp would probably rip the human’s head off. You’d probably have to use a date rape drug or otherwise sedate the chimp.
… or maybe just a nice dinner and a movie…