Not long ago, there was a girl in Belgium who actually fell in love with a chimpanzee. Since 2016, this girl has been going to the local zoo frequently, so much so that many zoo managers have gotten to know this girl, but no one has noticed anything unusual. After all, a beautiful girl likes to interact with small animals, which is also a sign of gentleness and love.
But as time passed, a zookeeper discovered that something was wrong. So that day, he hid nearby and observed secretly. did not expect that this beautiful girl not only had a lot of physical interaction with the chimpanzee Chita, but they even kissed through the glass.
The zoo manager has worked in the zoo for more than 30 years, and this is the first time he has encountered this situation. After interrogating the girl, the administrator further confirmed his suspicion. This beautiful girl actually fell in love with Chita, and they secretly dated through the glass for four years.
Faced with such a thing, will the zoo allow the girl to have a relationship with Qita? If their interactions were truly satisfying, would humans and animals be able to continue their offspring?
Can reproductive isolation between species be broken ?
The human emotional world is complex, and we have emotional connections with many things or objects related to our own experiences. For example, small animals raised at home, or tools that have been used for a long time, this kind of emotion can probably be felt by many ordinary people, but the cross-racial love between humans and animals like the above may only be seen in movies.
After the beautiful girl confessed her love story with Qita, she originally thought that the administrator would be lenient because of their touching love story like in the movie and allow them to continue their relationship. But she never expected that she would be blacklisted by the zoo from then on.
Chita, the chimpanzee, is waiting for the arrival of the girl every day. He becomes more and more unsociable, and the chimpanzee population gradually ignores him, leaving him alone, looking out the window alone.
The beautiful girl's mind has also been severely hit, and psychotherapists are also actively treating the girl's psychological trauma. After a hypnosis experiment by a psychologist, the girl actually said such words in her dream, which made the psychotherapist feel horrified.
"Qita, please wait patiently for me. I will take you back to your home in the jungle, where we will build a beautiful big house together, and then give birth to a bunch of babies."
In fact, people with common sense also know that under normal circumstances, it is impossible for different species to reproduce smoothly, which is what we call reproductive isolation.
A scientist once said: " This world is so wonderful. There is a law arranging and restricting us "
Reproductive isolation, as the name suggests, is an invisible mechanism between various species. Under this mechanism, the original singleness of species in nature is preserved, which means that in most cases, only the same species or similar species can reproduce species similar to the previous generation, but different species cannot reproduce combined species.
Reproductive isolation has been deeply engraved in the genes since the birth of a species. But this isolation mechanism will also have loopholes, which will allow two different species to reproduce. For example, horses and donkeys will breed into mules , and tigers and lions will breed into ligers , . But under normal circumstances, the offspring of this kind of reproduction do not have certain reproductive capabilities, and their life spans will be very short. Therefore, more than 99% of living things on the earth will have a barrier of reproductive isolation.
However, there are also many scientists who try to break the laws and forces of nature. They secretly conduct experiments, but the results are unexpected.
Cross-species hybridization attempts
As early as the beginning of the last century, Indian zoos decided to imitate the ligers produced by the cross between lions and tigers to mate leopards and lions. Under artificial intervention, the leopard was finally successfully born. However, the leopards also had no reproductive ability and their vitality was extremely fragile. died shortly after its birth.
And the Soviet Union and the United States During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union made a large number of attempts in different fields, including the hybridization of species.
The Soviet Union recruited five female volunteers. They planned to try artificial insemination using chimpanzee sperm and human eggs. Of course, due to the failure of several experimental results and the pressure of human ethics, the experiment was eventually forced to stop.
The United States has also conducted hybrid experiments between humans and chimpanzees, and it is said that the experiments have achieved certain success. But later, the experimenters were forced to panic about the new species and pressure from the outside world, and finally disposed of the hybrid, , but the authenticity of this matter has yet to be verified.
In modern society, similar interracial hybridization experiments between species are not recognized by society, not to mention mating between humans and other species, which violates ethics. It is strictly prohibited in many countries, but in 2019, Japan approved an experiment.
The Japanese government approved the experiment in order to solve the problem of human organ transplantation. Japanese scientists transplanted human cells into mouse embryos and then gave them to animals for surrogacy.
And this kind of perverted experiment makes people shiver down the spine just thinking about it. Can you imagine the birth of a new species that looks like a human from a distance, but up close has a long sharp beard, a long tail, and even two round ears on the top of the head? The species that is born at the critical moment is not necessarily based on the human form. It may also be the basic form of a mouse, with certain human organ characteristics added.
This approach has also been strongly condemned by society. If the experiment is successful and a new species is born based on human beings, it will appear in the form of rat-men, and such a new species will also have human thinking and other attributes. In this case, it will be against human ethics if we kill him again. At the same time, if this species has terrible abilities, it will have a negative impact on human society. These are not yet known.
In the end, based on the failure of the initial test project and the pressure of public opinion, the project was eventually stopped. But we don’t know whether Japan is still carrying out it secretly.
So if hybridization between species is so difficult, why is there no reproductive isolation between various human groups?
Why is there no reproductive isolation between human populations?
There are many similar species in nature, and they have different genetic development directions due to different regional environments. For example, although the horses living in my country and the horses living in the Americas are both horses, in the long historical evolution process, the genes of the two will evolve in different directions according to the local natural environment. After a long evolution, the two will have obvious differences, and may even evolve into new species.
In this case, due to the difference in chromosome sequence, they will also be affected by reproductive isolation and thus unable to reproduce. Therefore, in biology , many scientists also use biological isolation to determine whether certain organisms are the same species.
Seeing this, many people will think of us humans. After all, we are also affected by the regional environment and other aspects, so humans are also divided into yellow people, white people, black people .Why is it that instead of being reproductively isolated among human populations, why are the hybrids bred between the populations smarter and more beautiful?
In fact, scientists have discovered through archaeological discoveries that in the ancient times of mankind, there may have been at least 6 or more of the same species. We all know that humans belong to " Homo sapiens ", while several other populations have slowly disappeared under natural selection. Therefore, no matter what the skin color of the population, they all belong to the species "Homo sapiens".
Some people have also analyzed the reasons for the different skin colors. The "Homo sapiens" population originally lived in Africa. Under the circumstances at that time, the "Homo sapiens" may be genetically very similar to two other populations, and there is no natural reproductive isolation. Therefore, after "Homo sapiens" left Africa, they multiplied with the early Homo species in Europe and gave birth to the white race; they multiplied with the early Homo species in Asia and gave birth to the Yellow race.
But in fact, these are all speculations. More people believe that the difference in human skin color is greatly affected by the environment and vitamin D in the body. The sunlight in low latitudes is strong, and the skin will produce a lot of melanin, which will also prevent the synthesis of excessive vitamin D to maintain the balance of the human body. In high latitudes, it's just the opposite. After tens of thousands of years of vicissitudes, "Homo sapiens" who were originally the same species have developed different skin colors.
So in summary, human populations with different skin colors do not break away from the broad category of "Homo sapiens". Although three different skin colors have gradually formed over the years, there is no obvious differentiation in genetic sequences, and therefore there is no reproductive isolation.
At the same time, we who have studied biology also know that when the genes of the same species are combined, the greater the relative gap between the two genes, the better the genes of the offspring will be. This is why mixed-race children are both smart and beautiful.
And according to scientific research, the current evolution of human beings has not stopped. Some research data shows that the white race was actually born between 5000 and 8000 years ago. If this time is too long to be convincing, recent research data shows that the main blood supply arteries in the human arm are the radial artery and the ulnar artery, while the main blood supply to the fetus is the median artery. After the baby is born, the median artery is slowly replaced.
But in the 1880s, nearly 1/10 people in Australia still maintained the blood supply function of the median artery, and today, more than 1/3 of people have become the median artery to supply blood to their arms.
From this we find that humans have been evolving quietly, but the process of evolution does not happen overnight, and it takes a longer time to evolve obvious new characteristics.
Conclusion
The power of nature is great. We can develop in an orderly manner until today under the laws of nature. You can imagine what a world would be like without reproductive isolation. There may be all kinds of strange and weird creatures flying all over the sky and crawling on the ground. Just thinking about the chaos of this kind of species will give you goosebumps all over your body. Therefore, in the process of human development, we must also learn to respect nature and develop in an orderly manner.
