Maybe we're NOT alone, sort of.

[bayonet1976]

From this article

After determining that chimps and humans share 99.4 “life code”, by which I guess they mean DNA, these scientist are proposing that:

The Detroit team says its work supports the idea that all living apes should occupy the higher taxonomic grouping Hominidae, and that three species be established under the Homo genus.

One would be Homo (Homo) sapiens, or humans; the second would be Homo (Pan) troglodytes, or common chimpanzees, and the third would be Homo (Pan) paniscus, or bonobos.

Alas, the very next line is:

Not all scientists will accept the new classification.

[Eonwe]

This actually isn’t new news. Though the term “life code” is fairly vague. In the book The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond (1992), he reports that humans and chimps share 98.4 percent of their DNA. He notes that there is significantly less difference between our DNA and that of chimps than there is between other animals who share the same genus. To quote:

All taxonomists agree now that red-eyed and white-eyed vireos belong together in the genus Vireo, the various species of gibbons in the genus Hylobates. Yet the members of these pairs of species are genetically more distant from each other than are humans from the other two chimpanzees, and diverged longer ago. On this basis, then, humans don’t constitute a distinct family, or even a distinct genus, but belong in the same genus as common and pygmy chimps. Since our genus name Homo was proposed first, it takes priority, by the rules of zoological nomenclature, over the genus name Pan coined for the “other” chimps. So there are not one but three species of genus Homo on earth today: the common chimpanzee, Homo troglodytes; the pygmy chimpanzee, Homo paniscus; and the third chimpanzee or human chimpanzee, Homo sapiens. Since the gorilla is only slightly more distinct, it has almost equal right to be considere da fourth species of Homo.

Even taxonomists espousing cladistics are anthropocentric, and the lumping of humans and chimps into the same genus will undowbtedly be a bitter pill for them to swallow. There is no doubt, however, that whenever chimpanzees learn cladistics, or whenever taxonomists from Outer Space visit Earth to inventory its inhabitants, they will unhesitatingly adopt the new classification.

[ShibbOleth]

Should chimpanzees, humans and/or bonobos be able to interbreed then? I recall (although it’s a vague and distant memory) from High School biology, learning that animals within the same genus could interbreed (producing sterile offspring). Obviously my high school biology teacher wasn’t a world class scientist (although he was a pretty funny guy), but what exactly defines the line between species? And if chimps and others are the same genus, would that mean that closer relatives like Homo Neanderthalis would be considered sub-species and not separate species?

[Sunspace]

They/we’d still be different species, so by definition there’d be no interbreeding, right?

[Laughing_Lagomorph]

I don’t know if I agree with Mr. Diamond about chimps adopting the new classification when they learn cladistics. They might be no happier about sharing a genus with us than we are about sharing one with them!

Shib I know that one common definition of species requires that members of the same species should be able to produce fertile offspring. I never heard that about members of the same genus needing to be able to produce sterile offspring, though. Not saying you are wrong, just that I never heard it. These types of definitions work best when you are talking about multicellular organisms that reproduce by sexual reprodcution. They are less useful when talking about protists and such.

I’ve said before in these types of discussions that it is helpful for me to remind myself sometimes that the concept of “species” is to some extent just a construct to help us better understand the reality of how different types of animals are related. If such terms as “species” and “genus” start to become more of a hindrance than a help, then remember that they are not absolutes carved in stone (or DNA). They are just tools.

[Baker]

Different species are capable of interbreeding. A horse and a donkey produce a mule or a hinny. I have seen pictures of “ligers” and “tigons”, which are the offspring of lions and tigers. (The caption to the picture stated the animals were sterile) There was a cat up the street when I grew up that was the product of a female house cat and a bobcat, but the owners didn’t know about it’s fertility status. Domesticated dogs and wolves have interbred.

But I am not a biologist and I don’t know the significance of the above information as is would relate to taxonomic classification.

[Marley23]

Different species are capable of interbreeding. A horse and a donkey produce a mule or a hinny. I have seen pictures of “ligers” and “tigons”, which are the offspring of lions and tigers. (The caption to the picture stated the animals were sterile)

Right, but mules are sterile as well. Thus, horses and donkeys are still not the same species, because they can’t produce fertile offspring.