Until recently it was believed that species of different biological types cannot be crossed. However, a number of facts and scientific experiments indicate that this belief can be argued against, at least when it comes to mammals.
An unbelievable incident occurred not so long ago in Jiangxi , a Chinese province. A dog owned by a peasant named Tsen gave birth to three creatures. One of them was a regular puppy and two others were kittens.
People have been trying to cross different types of animals for a long time. The mule is a well known hybrid of a horse and a donkey. Mules are known for their stamina, and were used to transport goods for long distances in ancient times.
There are hybrids of tigers and lions, lions and leopards, wolves and dogs, zebras and horses, donkeys and ponies, camels and llamas, grizzlies and polar bears, false killer whales and dolphins. Humans even managed to get hybrids of the hybrids – for example, a cross breed of tiger and a hybrid of tiger and lion. Biologists from the French Institute for Agronomy Research (INRA) managed to implant a female European royal deer with an artificially inseminated egg cell of a Japanese sika deer.
Scientists believe that this way they will be able to preserve rare and extinct animals. However, a fetus will only survive if a surrogate mother and the “adopted” fetus are of close breeds. Soon researchers are going to recreate a livestock of Persian fallow deer and Elda deer that live in Iraq and Iran.
Normally crossed animals do not breed in nature and human interference is required for breeding.
Scientists often discuss ethical aspects of creating mutants that have both animal and human genes.
For example, scientists from the Stanford Stem Cell Research Institute conducted experiments where they implanted human neurons into the brain of mouse embryos. The mutant was killed right before its birth, and the scientists performed an autopsy to study its brain structure.
Scientists are preparing an experiment where they will grow a human body out of genetically modified mice cells. Genetic modification will allow rodents’ reproductive organs produce human sperm that will be later used for creating a human embryo.
According to Cell Research magazine, Chinese scientists from Shanghai Second Medical University managed to create a hybrid of a rabbit and a human being. They used skin cells from two men, one woman, two boys and a rabbit ovary cell for the experiment. The researcher removed DNA from the rabbit ovary cell and implanted it with human DNA.
Only 100 of 400 embryos survived. However, all embryos were destroyed at a certain stage of their development.
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