Hey my wifes dad was talking to me the other day about a beefalo when I was bitching about how high bison meat prices are at whole foods -
(hotlinked http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/catt ... -web-1.jpg )
Well, I had never heard of the beefalo, but we started talking about crossbreeds and stuff and it got me to thinking.

This is all wiki really had to offer on the subject:


I was wondering if it would be possible to crossbreed one of the larger primates with humans. I mean we aren't genetically that different.

How do you crossbreed stuff anyway, just inject some sperm into a female? I mean, where do you draw the line, if you can mate a donkey and a horse - how similar do things have to be to mate? I guess we can't breed with a bird, but what about an gorilla?

here's a wikipedia article on the subject-- probably a good place to get started on finding information on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee

good read thanks fribur.

I dunno about that whole getting a chick pregnant with monkey spunk.. Aren't they really, really strong? I bet they could do it in a lab though.. but damn making intelligent life - scary.

I don't wanna be a slave to ape masters =(

We've never found any evidence of humans crossbreeding with anything, not even Neanderthal. Though there are some bones which were found which have both human and Neanderthal qualities, it's not firm evidence of crossbreeding without genetic testing, which hasn't been done yet.

Though most believe that it's possible humans crossbred with Neanderthal, and if we were cross fertile with them there would def. be occurances of it, as there's ample cultural evidence showing interaction between the groups (specifically Neanderthal adaptation of Cro Magdon decoration and tools). And where interaction like that takes place, it's not unreasonable to assume that there would be instances of mating or even marriage type exchanges. But as I said, no evidence of cross breeding yet.

And Neanderthals were far 'closer' to us in genetic relation than any of the modern apes today.

I know that doesn't answer your question 'But is it possible' for a 'humanzee' type crossbreed...based on everything I've read, it's highly unlikely that it's possible, but there's been nothing to definitively rule it out.

I wasn't aware of those experiments either that were in Frib's link. I find that rather disturbing. That being said in a purely clinical fashion, I'd say the 'best' results would probably be with Bonobo chimps, based on size and physical similarities (it was the type of chimp that 'Oliver' was).

The other creepy thought is, were this possible...what lot for the offspring? Avoiding all religious/spiritual arguments about souls and the like...would we recognize them as equal to humans, and what parameters would we use? Intelligence? Appearance? What if we ended up with something that looked enough 'not human' that people could justify 'using' it like any other animal, but was intelligent enough to be a 'worker'...would then someone be breeding a new race of slaves? One could quickly see the justifications, after all we don't 'pay' horses who do labor, why would anyone pay this other type of animal. Hell...humans didn't have to work that hard to find justification for enslaving their fellow man, it probably wouldn't be much more difficult here.

I simply see no possible 'good' outcome. :\

_________________

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neosapien !

... yes I watched that show :p

Human-Monkey hybrids already exist. They live in the middle east and we are at war with them.

god I hope that was a troll, because it almost worked on me.

From:


I give you:


Home sweet home. And no, I was born in the 1970s, so all bets are off.

Or so we think it was destroyed...

Depends on how you mean. If you mean possible, as in Nature, then no, not likely. Chimerism between humans and chimps, no matter the genetic similarity, would be extremely unlikely, bordering on impossible.

However, if you mean possible through any means, like genetic manipulation, then yes, not only possible, but very possible. Science these days is extremely regimented, however, given the high costs to conduct experiments. So although it would not be that difficult to merge, say, a chimp sperm with a human embryo, it would be difficult to obtain funding for such an experiment.

You might be suprised at how much genetic breeding/manipulation of other animal species goes on. If it ever involved humans, my guess is it's going to be conducted by secret government facilities and we will never have knowledge of it unless someone accidently stumbles upon it or spills the beans.

I'd fucking hit it and you know god damn well you would too.

Is that Michael Jackson?

Aren't we genetically closer to pigs? I may be recalling incorrectly, but I thought some Australian researchers had created human-pig embryos successfully at one point in time.

No. Chimps have the greatest genetic homology with humans, like 96%+.

That being said, pigs are close, something in the neighbourhood of 90%. We use pig parts in medicine for xenotransplantation, for example artificial heart valves are porcine (pig) or mechanical (metal). The advantage of using a porcine valve is you don't need to use as much of the blood thinners (like Coumadin) as you do with a mechanical heart valve, since with current technology the mechanical valves tend to "shred" the red blood cells more than the animal valve.

There is research being done inserting human genes into pigs so we can harvest their organs for transplantation, like livers, kidneys, and hearts, although honestly I am about 7 years out of the loop on this so I don't know what progress is being made. The reason we use pigs instead of chimps is mainly a cost issue as well as expediency - it is much easier to breed pigs than chimps, they have a shorter gestation period, etc.

For the same reason, we use frogs to map out our DNA. You might be suprised to learn we share about 80-90% homology with frogs. Frogs reproduce rapidly, so are ideal to use in gene sequencing. There share certain similar traits, such as having 5 fingers, that you don't find in a pig.

Manchimppig?

ManBearPig!

I remember watching a show about ligers. I seem to remember hearing that crossbreeds like the liger and mule can't reproduce though. So while they can be made, they can't reproduce.