Ok, I am not supporting bestiality here. But, I just came to know about a Dogxim, a dog fox hybrid and I had known for a long time that horses and donkeys can breed (to produce a mule). So, I was just curious, can humans breed with any other animals closely related to us?

  • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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    49 minutes ago

    Conventional prehistory says there used to be animals we could interbreed with, but that we in fact bred with them so much that the hybrids replaced the creatures made to get said hybrid.

    These replaced peoples were, of course, designated members of the homo genus, which Homo Sapiens (the scientific name for humans) gets its name from, and they include things such as (using their common names, not their scientific names) Neanderthals (geographically found in Southern Europe), Denisovans (found mostly to the West, towards Asia), and Hobbits (yes, hobbits, they were found in the Pacific). Nothing of note happened in America.

    The Neanderthals and the Denisovans are of particular note, as their territories overlapped commonly, and there are cave findings that show they themselves interbred with each other and produced perfectly functioning offspring. I can only hope when they were engaging in the act, they asked to mingle and ended it with “no homo”.

    There are, however, reports that, at the same time in prehistory, we did try to breed with other animals that haven’t been replaced, typically the great apes, as evidenced by lice samples found in both us and them, but that this, quite expectedly, didn’t lead to any hybrid outcomes.

  • HorikBrun@kbin.earth
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    6 hours ago

    Breed with? No, not since we out-bred and out-competed Neandertals. And Denisovans. And at least one other ancestral human subspecies in sub-Saharan Africa. So at least 3 ancient homo sapiens subspecies that we used to interbreed with, but none left now.

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    1 hour ago

    No.

    The biological definition of a species is “a group of organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring” (in other words, the offspring need to also be able to reproduce; there are instances, such as mules, where two species reproduce but the offspring cannot themselves reproduce)

    • john89@lemmy.ca
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      53 minutes ago

      I don’t think that definition matters, considering the fertility of offspring is irrelevant to OP’s question.

  • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.org
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    7 hours ago

    I just found this, so you’ll have to read it too: https://www.the-sun.com/news/3657105/prostitute-orangutan-pony-tragic-story/

    Summary: Female orangutan named Pony was used as a prostitute for years. She was chained to a bed, shaved every other day leaving her with irritated, itchy, sore-covered skin. They also put make-up, perfume and jewellery on her, and taught her to perform sex acts. The local community didn’t want to let her go because she was generating great revenue. In the end it took 35 armed police officers to rescue her.

    • Subject6051@lemmy.mlOP
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      7 hours ago

      Why else would I ask that question? Completely unrelated but you won’t happen to have any goats nearby, would you?

  • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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    8 hours ago

    Homo sapiens are the last remaining species of hominina. Our closest remaining relatives, the Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos) diverged at least 6.5 million years ago. Though there is some evidence early hominina may have interbred with pan after the divergence as recently as 4 mya.

    This is more recent than dogs and foxes by a long way, and about the same as donkeys and horses. That, plus chromosomal analysis and some other research suggests it could be possible for a human and chimp or bonobo to interbreed, though likely not create fertile offspring. However, there has never been a confirmed case of this occurring, despite multiple claims.

    Edit: useful articles:

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        4 hours ago

        We’re talking way earlier than cavemen. The last interbreeding between our ancestors and chimps’ ancestors happened (using the most recent estimate I could find) a million years before the least recent evidence of the use of any stone tools. This is not a human that would be recognisable at all as a human.

  • Viri4thus
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    8 hours ago

    Your mom!

    *sorry, 80s nostalgia hit hard for a second there.

  • RobotToaster@mander.xyz
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    8 hours ago

    There used to be Neanderthals (homo sapiens neanderthalensis) and a few others, we basically interbred them out of existence.

      • limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        5 hours ago

        Not so sure, except for a last few holdouts in Spain about 40k years ago, who were probably whipped out by natural catastrophe along with regular humans in that area.

        I think we kept diluting their gene pool by having sex with them and out breeding them.

        • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
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          4 hours ago

          With everything you know about humans and our history of causing mass extinction everywhere we settle, of racial violence and irrational fear of anything that is a little bit different, you really don’t think there were any other contributing causes to the mysterious extinction of EVERY SINGLE NON-HUMAN HOMINID ON THE PLANET?

    • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      The Nazis & the Japanese experimented with this as well. AFAIK neither faction ever achieved anything resembling success. Fertilization occurs, but then immediately stops as there’s no compatibility, and the cells die.

    • QuarterSwede@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Genetic testing basically puts a large amount of doubt on it though. More likely it wasn’t a hybrid than was.