Hybrid Animals

adrian1963 said:
Many thanks Chlidonias I may have got my lines crossed as we had been lagering it for a while and will do a little research as I don't really know much about history.
But on the hybred thread I was wondering if thier are any hybreds on the planet that could be used to bring back extinct animals from seperating thier dna or am I still under the lager thought
Click to expand...

Hi Adrian,

The kind of genetic manipulation you are referring to is still a little unlikely (and very expensive!) for use in wildlife conservation.
In all honesty I can’t think of a species that could be recovered from hybrids (unless you are thinking about undoing “genetic pollution” in species which have bred with their domesticated counterparts?)

I am very confident that conservation will be successful on the genetics level in years to come as techniques become more established and the costs involved decrease.
 
Dicerorhinus said:
How conceited. Didn’t you recently remark how you liked to help people?
Click to expand...
I realise you are just trying to goad me, so this will be the last time I'll bother responding to any of your comments towards me, but perhaps you should check the definition of "conceited" -- hang on, I do like to help people so here's a link for you: define:conceited - Google Search

I'm reasonably confident adrian1963 is mature enough to see that my post was an off-the-cuff comment intended in a light-hearted way (hence the wink emoticon) without burying him in paragraphs about defining the Big Bang. If he felt otherwise he is quite welcome to say so. I doubt he needs you trying to defend him in order to try and belittle me and (ironically) satisfy your ego.
 
adrian1963 said:
Many thanks Chlidonias I may have got my lines crossed as we had been lagering it for a while and will do a little research as I don't really know much about history.
Click to expand...
you are quite welcome. There's always information available on the internet, unfortunately its not always of the best quality :D
 
A little off the subject, but what about the 'bred-back' Aurochsen [Heck Cattle to the politically correct] & Tarpan, re-created by selectively breeding from domestic cattle & horses after the wild ancestors had gone extinct. Not perfect replicas maybe, but pretty impressive. I have a fantasy of phasing out domestic cattle in the New Forest to replace with Heck Cattle; they could still produce an annual meat crop and would be a step towards rewilding.
 
@ Javan Rhino - Yes I herd of that. Some people are very uncertain it will work being that even if you recreate a species it still won't be the same species as it used to.
 
Fossa dude said:
@ Javan Rhino - Yes I herd of that. Some people are very uncertain it will work being that even if you recreate a species it still won't be the same species as it used to.
Click to expand...

Ahh cool, thanks for the confirmation. I know very little about it, but I have been shown a picture of the 'closest' they have got to a Quagga baby being born. I'll try and find the pic and upload it :)

Edit: It was actually easy enough to find the info. http://www.quaggaproject.org/ - there is a picture on here of 'Henry, the first quagga-like foal, born 20th Jabuary 2005).
 
Javan Rhino said:
I have been shown a picture of the 'closest' they have got to a Quagga baby being born. - there is a picture on here of 'Henry, the first quagga-like foal, born 20th Jabuary 2005).
Click to expand...

Its not technically a subject for a 'Hybrid Animals' thread but while on the subject, the Quagga Project have produced more foals that they call 'Quagga -like' since2005- these have increasingly less and less stripes on their legs and hindquarters.

They have a very complicated scoring system for the striping reduction. I am however rather sceptical that they will produce anything resembling a true Quagga- the ground colour in these recreated animals is all wrong (cream not brown) and shows little sign of improvement through the generations. The Quagga had its own very distinct striping pattern/colour which I fear is lost forever now.
 
Pertinax said:
Shorts said:
1. Why have all known white Tigers sightings and experience come from a Bengal background where whiteness confers no advantage?
According to that theory it would be the same with White Lions, they should occur on Snow-covered mountain tops not open savanahs.

The real answer (IMO) being its simply a gene that expressed itself in these areas where these mutations occurred.
Click to expand...

I agree with all your (obvious and well made) points, I was trying to refute the link provided by Arizona Docent which suggested that basically the white mutation arose because it conferred advantage to Tigers in snowy areas by using the same logic used in the original link (basically trying to make the point that the concept doesn't stand up to its own logic).
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Dicerorhinus said:
I studied Evolution and Genetics for years during my higher education. My undergraduate dissertation was in the field of micro-evolution under one of the leading evolutionary biologists in the world (it was stressful but fantastic time).

The nonsense you have posted here certainly doesn’t stand up to scrutiny (as you put it).

1. If white tigers are a “genetic throwback” (I’m definitely not suggesting they are) then the current range of Bengal Tigers has nothing to do with the genes persistence. A gene does not need to offer an advantage to species to persevere within a population.

2.1 Who can say when the mutation occurred? From your comment you seem to understand that Siberian (sorry they will always be Siberian to me) tigers are the basal population. Is it not possible that the white gene mutation/introduction occurred AFTER the two populations became independent?

2.2 Siberia is not snow covered year round. Again for arguments sake and purely to highlight how weak you post is: Perhaps the selection pressure is against white colouration (because, even in summer, vegetation is much sparser in East Asia than the Indian Sub-continent) driving the gene towards extinction in this sub-population?
Click to expand...

I'll bow to your obviously superior knowldege on the area but would make the point that I was trying to refute the link provided by Arizona Docent which suggested that basically the white mutation arose because it conferred advantage to Tigers in snowy areas by using the same logic used in the original link (basically trying to make the point that the concept doesn't stand up to its own logic).

Dicerorhinus said:
Why are you assuming the selection pressure acting on colouration would be camouflage? There are other factors which drive selection of an animal’s colour, two well established examples are:
Airborne parasite deterrence
Mate choice
Click to expand...

As above, I used this assumption, made in the original link to suggest that the basic logic of the concept doesn't stand up.
 
Siberian Tigers are not considered to be the basal population. Its believed the Tiger originated in either South East Asia (or was it China?) and then radiated out into the other parts of its range from there.
 
Pertinax said:
Siberian Tigers are not considered to be the basal population. Its believed the Tiger originated in either South East Asia (or was it China?) and then radiated out into the other parts of its range from there.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure on this so don't quote me on it, but I think I heard somewhere that, ironically, South China tigers (P. tigris amoyensis) was the founding ssp. But like I say, I could be wrong.
 
adrian1963 said:
But on the hybred thread I was wondering if thier are any hybreds on the planet that could be used to bring back extinct animals from seperating thier dna or am I still under the lager thought
Click to expand...

Not exactly what you are talking about, but re-creating a dinosaur type creature is actually a real possibility. Apparently animals carry a lot of 'junk' dna: genes from earlier stages of evolution which is switched off and inactive. In the case of birds, they still carry dna from the raptor type dinosaurs they evolved from.

Scientists can actually 'switch on' some of these genes, and have (separately) created chicken embroyos with teeth and tails, though I believe they didn't take them to hatching.

This was shown on a tv program I saw: sorry, can't remember details, but they showed the embroyos.

Of course a creature created in this way would be a jigsaw of available genes, and there'd be no way of knowing how 'authentic' it was, and it wouldn't be a particular dinosaur species.

Breeding from hybrids to an original is certainly theoretically possible, if all the genes are there. Personally I wonder if in some cases, where the genetic pool of a species or subspecies is limited, if hybrids might be a source of original genes and genetic diversity which might otherwise be lost. In such a case it might be better to breed animals with some of the 'wrong' genetics than maintain a very limited, inbred group of 'pure' animals.
 
My local zoo has a smal group of offspring of Pied avocet/Black-winged stilt hybrids. A male Black-winged stilt liked the Pied avocet to much. And was removed the same year. They live together with the nothern bald ibises

 
Neat. It's interesting how many accidental hybrids zoos can make. Although I don't support active breeding of hybrids, I can't deny that they are interesting to look at and any zoo worth their salt likely isn't going to be deliberately making tigons and wholphins, so I honestly don't mind them as long as they're being created by accident.
 
GiratinaIsGod said:
My local zoo has a smal group of offspring of Pied avocet/Black-winged stilt hybrids. A male Black-winged stilt liked the Pied avocet to much. And was removed the same year. They live together with the nothern bald ibises
Click to expand...
It’s not recommended to keep avocets and stilts together, for this reason
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top