Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle …
Too bad I’m not single because this opens up all sorts of new dating possibilities. Damn!
Speaking of interbreeding, anyone see the pictures a couple of months ago of a warphin, a cross between a whale and a dolphin? Looked like you’d think, like a huge dolphin. How cool was that? And BTW, what happened to that unplanned horse-zebra hybrid that inexplicably happened a couple of years ago when everyone’s back was turned? Anyone? Or the lion-tiger hybrid that happened when a lion and tiger got together through the bars of their cages (they were next to each other for a long time, and were said to be comfortable with each other. No kidding)?
A liger is nothing to fool around with!
Oh… and it’s a **wholphin **(killer whale/dolphin hybrid), not warphin. And it should be noted that a killer “whale” isn’t really a whale-- it’s a species in the dolphin family.
It’s worth noting that we don’t even know for sure that we can’t STILL interbreed with chimps. We have no evidence that we can, but then if we hadn’t deliberately tried to breed camels and llamas together, we never would have known that was possible either (it is, but it took tons of lab work to make it happen). We’ve never undertaken similar breeding experiments with chimps that I know of, so we really can’t say for sure that it’s impossible (and since it would generally be considered unethical, we’re unlikely to seriously try anytime soon). We do have different numbers of chromosomes… but that is not in itself a barrier to succesful reproduction in the way some people think it is. There are various species of horses with different chromosome numbers that can interbreed, and it happens all the time in mice and rats.
My guess would be that it would be highly unlikely. But still, it’s worth noting that it’s not outside the realm of possibility. Heck, it was even considered possible that Oliver, the strange, mostly-bipedal chimp, might be a human/chimp hybrid (he wasn’t: he was just a chimp whose natural similarity to many human traits was particularly pronounced and noticeable, as we would expect given that we are such similar species)
I should note however that this theory is still pretty controversial. There are any number of other methods of dating and genetic analysis that have come to different conclusions. This is one of the hottest and most contenious areas of research right now, and everything is hotly disputed.
Curious about this, I googled “llama camel interbreeding” and found this interesting link, though I can’t vouch for its complete accuracy. The story of Oliver was pretty lively, as was the bit about Stalin’s trying to breed a human-ape army [!]
Hijack:
The link mentions claims of rabbit/guinea pig hybrids; this isn’t the first time I’ve heard these claims and, like the linked article, I’m highly skeptical of them. Does anyone have any more detailed info on the claims?
The purported reason for the Stalin rumor is particularly funny: he wanted soliders that were… less fussy about what they ate? Was that really a huge problem with human troops? Were his soliders ALLOWED to be fussy about anything? Plus, apes are somewhat fussy about what they eat too. 
Another interesting theory about humans is paedomorphy. While I tend to think it’s way out there in the case of human beings, it’s not theoretically implausible. Essentially, the idea is that humans evolved by prolonging adolescence and making sexual maturity come sooner. This is speculated on largely because juvenile ape skulls and so forth are remarkably more humanlike than their adult skulls. And there may well be an element of truth to that. But the really bizarre idea is that this evolutionary process may have simply chopped off the adult stage of life, and that it’s still there in our code.
This is not unprecedented. That’s what the axotol is: it looks like a salamander larva, but it lives its whole life that way, from reproduction to death. However, if artificially given the correct horomones… it develops into something very much like a salamander.
So the idea is that, perhaps, if given the right hormones or other minor genetic tweaks, human beings could develop an entire “adult” stage that previously we had lost and never see naturally. Now, as I said, the vast majority of biologists don’t think this is the case. But it’s sort of neat to imagine: you suddenly develop ape-like traits later in life, your jaw protruding, your arms lengthening. Don’t be a baby: flinging poo is the grown-up thing to do!
[complete hijack]
Not sure if you knew this, but SF writer Larry Niven explored that concept - not necessarily in a realistic way.
We know that chimps and bonobos are interfertile, but we don’t know about gorillas and chimps or bonobos. We’ve had lots of threads on the human/chimp subject. Also, I don’t think any serious scientists ever considered Oliver to be a human/chimp hybrid. I’ve seen film footage of him, and even a cursory look at him says “chimp”.
Good point. It seems that everytime someone undertakes a new analysis, there is a new conclusion. I think partly because we’re taking a complex phenomenon (the degree of inter-relatedness) and trying to map it onto a single number, like % similarity of DNA or date of splitting of the ancestral lines. The answer is going to depend to some degree on how you look at it.
Similarly, aren’t dogs essentially wolves bred for “permanent adolescence?”
The term **neoteny **is more commonly used. And it’s actually pretty well accepted by biologists that humans have some neotenous characteristics. The retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood is a common evolutionary “strategy”. But neoteny and prolonged adolescence are not necessarily the same thing. There is no question that humans have a prolonged adolescence (compared to other apes)-- that’s simply a measurable fact.
Of particular interest is the post-natal human brain development pattern. Apes, like all mammals, have a marked slowdown in brain growth immediately after birth. Humans, however, retain the “normal” mammalian fetal brain growth rate for about the frist year after birth before settling into the more “normal” post-natal mammalian brain growth rate. We can even look back into our evolutionary past and see an intermediate pattern in Homo erectus, while Australopithecines show the ape-like pattern (not surprising since their brains are no larger than those of extant great ape species).
That’s an oversimplification, but dogs do have some elements of neoteny (eg, smaller faces, floppy ears, barking behaviors). The same sort of patterns emerged in an experiment to breed domesticed foxes. Turns out that if you breed foxes for certain behavioral traits (friendliness with humans) that you also manifest certain physical traits similar to dogs. Link. [Warning: PDF]
It should be noted, however, that we really don’t know if we intentionally domesticated wolves or if a certain group of wolves evolved into dogs as a survival strategy (ie, linking up with humans). The same can be said about some domesticated farm animals.
Everything I know about dogs, I learned from my uncle,Dan F. Rice, a retired veterinarian who writes extensively about dogs and dog breeding. According to him, canis familiaris probably evolved from canis lupus, but not because of domestication. There is a theory that familiaris is just lupus in permanently arrested development; it makes some sense because that would mean familiaris never developed past the friendly pup stage (hence the name) to assume the wariness that makes the wolf an effective survivor and hunter. Familiaris would have been attracted to humans as a matter of survival – dogs can hunt on their own, but they’re really not that good at it in the wild (dingoes notwithstanding) and they suffer a high mortality rate from wolves, coyotes and big cats.
Interestingly, I once was brushing my big yellow lab and noticed that her face had some features that reminded me of a bear. Some of the bigger chocolate and black labs have occasionally been mistaken for bears, when seen at a distance in heavy woods. I did a little research and wrote to Uncle Dan, and discovered that apparently ursus is the closest cousin canis has.
Ain’t evolution fun?
Not quite-- you’re mixing your families with your genera. There are 15 other genera* in the family Canidae, besides Canis. I’m pretty sure that the *Ursidae *family is the closest extant family to Canidae, but not *Ursus *and *Canis *(the genera).
*or something close to that, depending on how you slice it.
Canis familiaris is no longer the valid name for the domestic dog (it changed around 1995 or so). It is now Canis lupus familiaris.
Sort of. Ursidae is the least derived member of Arctoidea, which is the sister clade to Canidae. Other members of Arctoidea would technically be more closesly related to bears (e.g., pinnipeds, weasels, raccoons, skunks, etc.). That would make them sort-of cousins, but Ursidae has more closely-related cousins.
Also, as a general aside, neoteny is but one form of paedomorphosis (the retention of juvenile features into adulthood), which in turn is a form of heterochrony. The other form of paedomorphosis is progenesis, wherein the onset of reproduction occurs earlier in descendent populations than it did in ancestral ones. Neoteny, in contrast, is the slowing of general development relative to sexual development.
The other general form of heterchrony is peramorphosis, wherein development is “sped up” relative to the ancestral condition.
If, by “interbreed” you mean produce fertile offspring, my guess is quite probably not, as humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, and chimps 24 (chimps have two chromosomes that more-or-less overlap with our 2nd chromosome, sort of a 2a and 2b chromosome, if you will). You might get a viable hybrid offspring, but like a mule, it would probably be impossible, or very difficult, for that offspring to parent children of his or her own. If memory serves, mules very rarely can be successfully impregnated if mated with a horse or a donkey, but never another mule. My guess would be that at best this would also be true of a humanzee or chimpuman.
Loopy: Having a different number of chromosomes is often a sign that hybrid offspring will be infertile, but not always. As you noted, humans have one chromosome that can be thought of as two fused ape chromosomes, so things might “line up” OK. And you got “humanzee” right (human father/chimp mother), but I think a hybrid wtih achimp father/human mother would be called a “chuman” not a “chimpuman”.
Ah, “chuman”. :smack:
Thanks!
Though, to be honest, I think “chimpuman” sounds better. “Chuman” makes me think of a horror movie monster for some reason.
I know this is a rather unscientific reason to add to my doubt about humanzee or chuman fertility, or even viability, (and I think I’ve mentioned it before), but, in my estimation, there are enough humans who are pervy and twisted enough to have tried it already. I know a female chimp could probably tear a man limb from limb if she didn’t take kindly to his advances, but animals can be restrained, and men are not above gang rape. Just some horrible idle speculation.