What animals can a person be crossed with

The idea of crossing humans with animals has occupied people for thousands of years. Thanks to her, many fantastic characters appeared, about which myths and legends tell. Minotaur, centaurs, satyrs, mermaids and other fictional animals reflected people's dreams of creatures that received human intelligence and the abilities of representatives of fauna. Modern science fiction writers also adore this topic. But is it possible in reality to cross a human and an animal? Scientists have long known the answer to this question.

First of all, you need to talk about the concept of the view. According to the modern definition, a species is a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing viable fertile offspring. Simply put, a species can be considered a group of creatures that give healthy viable offspring, which, in turn, can also continue their kind.

But if representatives of different species mate, their offspring are infertile, have physical disabilities and genetic abnormalities. There are several known cases when humans interbred with other species. The most famous is the connection of Neanderthals with Cro—Magnons, the ancestors of modern humans. These two close, but still different species crossed at the dawn of humanity.

Due to their interbreeding, modern inhabitants of the Earth of non-African origin carry from 1 to 4 percent of Neanderthal DNA. So we're all a bit Neanderthal, as strange as it sounds. In the animal world, species intersect more often, thanks to humans. An example would be mules — hybrids of a male donkey and a female horse and ligers born from a male lion and a tigress. It is well known that these animals cannot produce offspring.

But what kind of animals can a person be crossed with? Theoretically, this is possible with species that have significant genetic similarity to humans. But in practice, this is not possible, and here's why. The main difficulty lies in the different number of chromosomes. Chromosomes are structures inside living cells that contain important genetic information for reproduction.

A person has 23 pairs of chromosomes. In other species, the number of chromosomes is different, and the offspring may have serious health problems. The second factor is the genetic distance between humans and other species. It is obvious that the apes are closest to us. That is why experiments on crossing humans and primates have been conducted at different times. But even in this case, the genetic difference is large enough that such a crossing would not be successful.

Embryos of a human-chimpanzee hybrid conceived by scientists in test tubes turned out to be unviable. Although there is information that such a crossing was once successful, but the experiment had to be interrupted. It can be said that nature has wisely arranged obstacles for such a crossing for a reason. It is difficult to imagine the consequences for humanity if such offspring survived and, moreover, continued to reproduce.