Interbreeding with Animals

L

lixluke

Refined Reinvention
Valued Senior Member
What would happen if different species of animals to interbreed?
Like say a lion and tiger. A crow and dove. Human and chimp. Dog and cat. Horses and cows. Chickens and ducks. Or even something totally different like Hamsters and frogs.

What are the limits of type of animal's ability to breed? Do all animals have to breed with the same kind? How did that happen evolutionarily?

Evolution seems discrete instead of consistent. Like if animal A evolved into animal B. Then animal B evolved into animal C.
 
liger1_sm.jpg

A liger. Yesterday.​
 
I think the two mates have to have the same number of chromosomes. There may be some other issues as well, and I am no biologist!
 
Horses have 64 chromosomes. Donkeys have 62. Mules have 63. They do not have to have the same number of chromosomes.
 
MetaKron said:
Horses have 64 chromosomes. Donkeys have 62. Mules have 63. They do not have to have the same number of chromosomes.
Click to expand...

Ok, so I'm a little off. They have to have similar enough genes to create progeny. But can a mule have offspring? Didn't think so.

That mix is a dead end, the only mules are ones from both a horse and a donkey.

Horses and donkeys are very closely related, as well, so their genes have moderately close parings.
 
with further genetic breakthroughs we might be able to arbitrarily take certain genes after we've sequenced them that benefit us. For instance, who wouldn't want eagle vision or be cancer-free as sharks.
 
MetaKron said:
Horses have 64 chromosomes. Donkeys have 62. Mules have 63. They do not have to have the same number of chromosomes.
Click to expand...

The key reason why mules are infertile is that the horse and donkey do not have the same number of chromosomes.
 
The question wasn't whether the offspring were fertile. It was whether they could interbreed at all.

The offspring of a horse and a donkey are not infertile every time. Neither are the offspring of a lion and a tiger. I think that the fact that they are different species and can interbreed proves speciation.
 
Mules are a cross between a male donkey and a female horse. Hennies are a cross between a male horse and a female donkey. Both mules and hennies can be of either sex, male or female. Almost all male mules are gelded (castrated) when they are young, so there are very few instances of offspring from male mules. A very small percentage of female mules are not sterile and do produce offspring. It is considered a freak occurance, but it does happen.
 
tablariddim said:
Here's another one I made earlier.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/250400/liger/
Click to expand...
Holy weird!

Why don't lions and tigers interbreed in the wild to make those huge things?
What happens if it is a female lion and a male tiger?
Is it true that the males are sterile? What's up with that? What about dogs? Any mutants? If we breed a human with a monkey, maybe we will get king kong.

That thing can probably take on an elephant.
 
It's a male African lion on a female Siberian or Bengal tiger. The tigress lacks the ability that the female lion has to suppress the growth of the male fetus that the female lion has. Somehow it still works out. A tigress has been known to give birth to four live male ligers and survive. They're pretty tough.

They don't do this in the wild because they live on different continents.
 
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