[extropy-chat] Human Evolution

[aperick at centurytel.net]

kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote:
>
 Is anyone here a primatologist, anthropologist, or geneticist? I am working
on a research paper for no particular reason than to organize my thoughts
and I need to find out a few things.
1.) Bonobos show that they diverged from chimpanzees about 2 mya. Are they
capable of breeding with regular chimpanzees. Do they show any history of
doing so? If so, do they produce sterile offspring?
2.) A donkey and a horse may make a mule. Sterile, but a creature that has
characteristics of both horses and donkeys. A bengal cat is a cross between
the asian leopard cat (felis bengalensis) and a domestic house cat. The male
offspring are also sterile, but the females may breed yet again with a
domestic housecat male and produce males that are not sterile. Are there
similar occurrances in the primate world?
/>

Hey, this is a great question. I want to know all the facts re primate
hybrids. How many chromosomes does each have? And what about other hybrid
species, is the same number of chromosomes required for a live birth? Is
there a way to reliably predict the outcome of an untried cross breed or
must we just try it? In spite of MY handle, I volunteer Kevin.

But, seriously, I have inquired before to primatologists re human ape hybrid
potential, and they just seem to get kinda freaked out (maybe it's my handle
again) like they know something but are afraid to tell.

I'm not schooled enough (not recently anyway) to know if I may be guilty of
a kind of "querying a physicist about perpetual motion machines," or, maybe
this topic is just to "sensitive" in this world.