Animal Hybrids That Exist in Nature
March 28, 2024 1:08 AM Subscribe
One to add: Canadian super-pigs, which "combine the survival skills of wild Eurasian boar with the size and high fertility of domestic swine."
Oops... apparently they did not hybridize in the wild, but were instead cross-bred by humans. Ignore.
posted by clawsoon at 3:59 AM on March 28
Oops... apparently they did not hybridize in the wild, but were instead cross-bred by humans. Ignore.
posted by clawsoon at 3:59 AM on March 28
Beefalo are real?!?! I only knew about them from a video game.
Are... are shiny Pokemon also real?
posted by AlSweigart at 4:31 AM on March 28 [2 favorites]
Are... are shiny Pokemon also real?
posted by AlSweigart at 4:31 AM on March 28 [2 favorites]
what i really want is honeybeefalo, but i'd settle for bumblebeefalo
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:39 AM on March 28 [3 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:39 AM on March 28 [3 favorites]
One to add: Canadian super-pigs, which "combine the survival skills of wild Eurasian boar with the size and high fertility of domestic swine."
Or, that guy in Montana who wanted to create and introduce (and sell) hybrid Marco Polo argali sheep for better hunting opportunities. (He not only got shut down, but got convicted on federal charges.)
Really, I think species are more like gender and sex, where we now understand that a simply, neat binary separation is not actually how things work. There's always hybridization and cross-pollination, as it were. Including with humans, given the genetic evidence they keep finding that shows mixing between different branches of the human evolutionary tree (a point that's made in the article as well).
One time, I met someone who had a coy-dog as a pet. My understanding is that they don't typically make good pets, but hers was basically totally dog in personality, but very coyote in appearance.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:33 AM on March 28 [5 favorites]
Or, that guy in Montana who wanted to create and introduce (and sell) hybrid Marco Polo argali sheep for better hunting opportunities. (He not only got shut down, but got convicted on federal charges.)
Really, I think species are more like gender and sex, where we now understand that a simply, neat binary separation is not actually how things work. There's always hybridization and cross-pollination, as it were. Including with humans, given the genetic evidence they keep finding that shows mixing between different branches of the human evolutionary tree (a point that's made in the article as well).
One time, I met someone who had a coy-dog as a pet. My understanding is that they don't typically make good pets, but hers was basically totally dog in personality, but very coyote in appearance.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:33 AM on March 28 [5 favorites]
"Different species can't produce hybrid offspring" is one of those many facts we are taught in school that is true, except for it occasionally happening among plants, birds, fish, and mammals. Humans too (Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA). My favorite ridiculous theory is that humans resulted from a chimpanzee-pig hybridization. It was the vitriolic reaction to this idea that caught my attention. Like, people were okay with the idea that Humans are basically fancy monkeys, but the idea of throwing in a little pig DNA was a bridge too far. Despite it explaining oh so much. It's one of those theories like Earth expansion (Why do the continents fit together like a puzzle on a smaller globe?), or the Origin of Consciousness in the Bicameral Mind (Where did the whole idea of deities come from?), or the origin of Christianity in Egyptian religion (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, anyone?) that answers too many questions to be dismissed without extreme prejudice.
The reaction to the chimpanzee-pig hybrid idea at the time resembled to me the reaction of German doctors to the guy that suggested less people would die if they washed hands before surgery (What would a Hungarian know about science?). Or the reaction to the guy who invented the face mask (He thinks he discovered something just because everyone else died!). I really dig this Max Planck quote: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." Of course chimps did not interbreed with pigs to produce Humans, as is absolutely clear from reading the linked article in this post. Of course it wasn't pigs, we know that. It was dolphins.
posted by jabah at 7:08 AM on March 28 [2 favorites]
The reaction to the chimpanzee-pig hybrid idea at the time resembled to me the reaction of German doctors to the guy that suggested less people would die if they washed hands before surgery (What would a Hungarian know about science?). Or the reaction to the guy who invented the face mask (He thinks he discovered something just because everyone else died!). I really dig this Max Planck quote: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." Of course chimps did not interbreed with pigs to produce Humans, as is absolutely clear from reading the linked article in this post. Of course it wasn't pigs, we know that. It was dolphins.
posted by jabah at 7:08 AM on March 28 [2 favorites]
Beefalo are real?!?! I only knew about them from a video game.
When I was a kid, we bought a beefalo from a local farmer every year to munch on our small pasture and then be put into the freezer when winter came. In my mind, the mighty beefalo's ability to constantly break through our electric and wire fence was due to their tough buffalo genes and instinctual desire to roam free, but it was probably just that our fences weren't great and they were lonely, being herd animals (they could hear a herd of cattle lowing not too far down the road). I think they were all of 1/16th buffalo, so it probably made no difference at all.
When a beefalo escaped, but was still wandering relatively nearby, I was recruited and we went out to coax it back into the enclosure with me enticing it with some half rotten apples from the ground in front and my dad with a switch at the rear. I don't recall this technique being particularly effective. It was also my job to go across the road to the neighbouring farm, at about five years old, with $2 and my little wooden wagon to buy an individual bale of hay. The wagon was exactly the right size for a square bale, which the neighbours would load for me, and then I could just tip the whole thing over to unload once I got home. I felt very important.
posted by ssg at 7:32 AM on March 28 [11 favorites]
When I was a kid, we bought a beefalo from a local farmer every year to munch on our small pasture and then be put into the freezer when winter came. In my mind, the mighty beefalo's ability to constantly break through our electric and wire fence was due to their tough buffalo genes and instinctual desire to roam free, but it was probably just that our fences weren't great and they were lonely, being herd animals (they could hear a herd of cattle lowing not too far down the road). I think they were all of 1/16th buffalo, so it probably made no difference at all.
When a beefalo escaped, but was still wandering relatively nearby, I was recruited and we went out to coax it back into the enclosure with me enticing it with some half rotten apples from the ground in front and my dad with a switch at the rear. I don't recall this technique being particularly effective. It was also my job to go across the road to the neighbouring farm, at about five years old, with $2 and my little wooden wagon to buy an individual bale of hay. The wagon was exactly the right size for a square bale, which the neighbours would load for me, and then I could just tip the whole thing over to unload once I got home. I felt very important.
posted by ssg at 7:32 AM on March 28 [11 favorites]
These hybrids are cute and all, but how about a hybrid of two groups whose last common ancestor is from over 100 million years ago?
Slaps roof, you can fit so much genomic stabilization in these babies. Trash fish my ass!
posted by ursus_comiter at 4:50 PM on March 28
Slaps roof, you can fit so much genomic stabilization in these babies. Trash fish my ass!
posted by ursus_comiter at 4:50 PM on March 28
My favorite ridiculous theory is that humans resulted from a chimpanzee-pig hybridization.
Oh wow, that website is absolutely my jam.
Semi-relatedly, I always had a totally non-scientific opinion that pigs and humans were related. I used to go to this butcher's shop that would have various pig parts hanging from hooks, and I swear that a dismembered pig leg looked exactly like a human arm. Also, isn't it at least a little fishy that we can use various pig organs in human transplants? Wake upsheeple pigple!!
posted by Literaryhero at 5:27 PM on March 28
Oh wow, that website is absolutely my jam.
Semi-relatedly, I always had a totally non-scientific opinion that pigs and humans were related. I used to go to this butcher's shop that would have various pig parts hanging from hooks, and I swear that a dismembered pig leg looked exactly like a human arm. Also, isn't it at least a little fishy that we can use various pig organs in human transplants? Wake up
posted by Literaryhero at 5:27 PM on March 28
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One to add: Canadian super-pigs, which "combine the survival skills of wild Eurasian boar with the size and high fertility of domestic swine."
posted by clawsoon at 3:50 AM on March 28