Golden Jackals, Domestic Dogs, Wolves, Coyotes and Dingos can all interbreed and produce fertile young.
That they do not interbreed very often is largely due to geography and culture (i.e. small differences in communication and estrus cycles), but the same is true for human races, and yet we do not think people are different species.
In fact, scientists are starting to come to terms with an important idea, which is that a lot of animals are in the process of speciating -- moving from one species to many -- and that the notion of species is a human idea that still needs a lot of work when moved into certain blurry parts of the natural world.
This simple point was recently hightlight in The New Times in an article on coyotes in which it was noted that the Eastern Coyote -- the larger variant of the Western Coyote -- is “mostly coyote and a little bit of wolf,” but that there is also a little domestic dog DNA floating around in there as well.
One major complication is that all the species in the genus Canis, to which the coyote belongs, can successfully interbreed. In other words, coyotes (or Canis latrans, meaning “barking dog”) and domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) and every kind of wolf, from the red wolf to the Eastern wolf to the gray wolf (Canis lupus), can mate and produce perfectly healthy pups. No wonder, then, that interactions among these species have led to a genetic mess that researchers sometimes refer to as “Canis soupus.”.
6 comments:
which is why auspicious organizations such as our beloved kennel clubs are the gatekeepers of purity of the gene pools.
It seems that some of the wild ones like the Red Wolf and the Dingos are disappearing. They are, however, leaving many mixed breed offspring behind. There are movements to save the 'breeds'and keep them pure. But one wonders if that (intermingling) is what is supposed to happen so that they can survive and adapt.
Also, White Tail and Mule deer are interbreeding in the areas where Colorado, New Mexico and Texas come close.
Debi and the Tx JRTs
Of course, we humans can probably interbreed successfully with Chimps. Our DNA is more similar than other species that have successfully interbred.
If so, should we be considered the same species as Chimps? Were we the same species as the neanderthals?
Maybe we should redefine the term species. Maybe it should have to do more with the mental and physical gap or the DEGREE of differences between animals rather than if they can interbreed.
The physical differences in the body and brains of an Asian and Irishman are much smaller (practically none) compared to the differences between a Golden Jackal and and African Wild dog. This is why most people accept humans as the same species, and many have difficulty accepting dogs and wolves as the same.
...Of course the truth is that all living things are related, and our degree of separation is on a sliding scale. But humans tend to like things more black and white than that.
Commissions, etc....
I stopped dead on the first sentence because it is absolutely wrong.
There is no "probably" with things like this, and it really is best if we "use the Google."
You may have read somewhere that humans "share 98 percent of their DNA with chimps" or some other made-up statistic, but you really need to go deeper. You see, chimps and humans share 90 percent of their DNA with fruitflies too, and I think you and I will agree that fruitfly-human sex is not likely to produce much.
As for humans and chimps being similar in terms of DNA, that is mostly nonsense. A small note is made on this blog (with a nice graphic comparing chicken, human and chimp DNA at >> http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2009/05/you-look-like-monkey-and-smell-like-one.html
And while wolves, dogs, coyotes dingos, and golden jackals CAN interbreed amd produce fecund young, they rarely do, and the reason for this is that the REAL EXPERTS on species, the animals themselvs, know they are very, very different. For more on that see >> http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2006/12/wolf-within.html and especially read the comments in which I note that "Because our relations are so far removed from each other, humans and apes do not even share the same number of chromosomes. Apes have 24 pairs (48) chromosomes, while humans have 23 pairs (46)."
Patrick
Actually, having different numbers of chromosomes is not an absolute barrier. There have been other species to successfully interbreed with different chromosome numbers.
In fact... this is not directly related but is interesting... don't people with Down syndrome have one chromosome more or less? And they can have children with unaffected people (though it's rare).
Anyway, the reason that some people, including many experts, believe that human chimp hybridization is a possibility is simply because other animals have done it that were waaay less genetically similar.
There are real experts who would agree with the statement that succesfull human/chimp interbreeding is probable.
And a majority of real experts would agree that human/neanderthal interbreeding was not only possible, but probably happened.
There has actually been one creepy experiment done... I think in germany or russia... that produced no pregnancies thankfully but it was short lived, and was done about 100 years ago so the technology would be more efficient today.
either way, the time when one species splits into two is definitely hazy and there are often very long (millions of years) of overlap time where they can still breed together, during which it gets more and more difficult/less likely.
Commissions -- This is absolute nonsense. Please read the instructions to posting on this blog. We do not allow unsupported nonsense (that would be your claim that Chimpanzee-human crosses are possible) on this blog. Sorry, but there it is. Footnotes and peer-reviewed science journals exists for a reason and we salute them. The "Weekly World News" exists too, but we do not salute it.
P.
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