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Mule Gives Birth
!splut writes "Thumbing it's nose as science, a Moroccan mule has given birth. Mules, hybrids between horse and donkey, are normally infertile, due to differences between the number and structure of horse and donkey chromosomes. Nevertheless, for reasons not well understood, fertile mules do occur, infrequently, with some 60 documented live births since 1527."
Thumbing it's nose as science...
Thumbing its nose at science
i claim this fp in the name of George Nayef Kayatta, R.M. (renaissance man)!
Thumbing it's nose as science...
Sheesh, the things they're calling "science" these days!
I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
We always joke about how they make seedless watermelons - and this article made me think of it.
(and no, I don't care what everything2 says - sexually-deviant horses and fertile watermelons do NOT make seedless ones.)
HURD - Hurd's Under Research & Development
As far as I can tell, Science has no explanation to offer for this strange--dare I say miraculous?--event. It strikes me as no small coincidence that where we see Science fail is in the prediction of when and under what conditions the Creation of Life takes place. Maybe someone is trying to tell us something...
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I've heard that fertile mules are generally destoyed. The breeders don't want to sell them and put themselves out of business.
Or perhaps that's just a legend?
Are there known hybrids/half-breeds can have normal fertility, as opposed to requiring a "miracle" to occur? This is a sincere question, even though I know full well the trolls that are going to be attracted to this post.
Those who complain about affect & effect on
So what is really interesting is whether the offspring are fertile. If so, then we can start breeding mules from mules, and we have a new species.
And where does the infertility in mules normally lie? Is it a male thing or a female thing? Or both?
I guess that will be next headline.
-- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
Yeah, this is even more amazing than the wonders that lurks beneath the indigo waves of the oceans that cover 80% of our planet.
We talk of finding life on other planets, which orbit around other stars. And we talk about environmental issues and geological events with such certainty, such God-given insight. Or is it indeed God-given? Have we not perhaps eaten instead of the Fruit of Knowledge? Did we doom ourselves long ago to the curse of insight? It is not for me to say, nor for any man. But we have no choice: we, as a species, are driven to seek information, knowledge, science.
I didnt even know her nime months ago.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
The Second Foundation barely saved the Seldon plan from the Mule the last time. This kid could ruin everything!
Paul Lenhart writes words!
"hybrids between horse and donkey, are normally infertile, due to differences between the number and structure of horse and donkey chromosomes"
Oh boy, more proof that the bat baby exists
A quick google search on Liger and Fertile tells me that male hybrids are rarely fertile. Another page states, "No fertile male ligers have yet been found and it is assuemd all are sterile." Though reading a bit more, there may be some fertile males, or males that are fertile for a brief period.
I am no biologist, but isn't downs syndrome caused by the "freak" addition of an extra chromosome? If this is the case couldn't something like this happen with great rarity in mules resulting in a 64-chromosome mule, which would be capable of breading?
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
One possible explantion for this rare occurance, one that I can see, anyway - Horses have 64 chromosomes in their normal diploid state, with haploid gametes having 32. Donkeys have 62 chromosomes in normal diploid state, with haploid gametes having 31. This gives a mule 63 chromosomes. If one gamete had experienced non-disjunction during meiosis (that is, one pair of homologues did not split correctly, giving one daughter cell 2 copies of a chromosome, and one none), a mule could have 62 or 64 chromosomes (depending on which gamete it received). This is not a very rare occurance, Down Syndrome or Kleinfelter's Syndromes in humans (trisomy 21 and XXY respectively). While most cases of non-disjunction produce abnormal offspring, in humans, for example, an XXX female is completely normal, except for a usually smaller stature. A case like this, where the offspring IS normal, is relatively rare, and a similar situation could be occuring in these fertile mules.
Could be this mule has special features that allow it to succesfully breed with all other species.
The truth is that speciation is not very well understood. In many ways 'species' is a convenient abstraction - we humans like to put horses and donkeys into two discrete buckets and not think much about anything in between. In reality there is no law of nature that says that all living entities must belong to exactly one of our convenient buckets.
The 'infertile children' definition works pretty well, but it is not perfect. Another problematic example is that of a species of birds that live in different territories around the globe. The birds can mate with other birds in their own or in adjacent territories. In other words, the birds in the first territory can mate with those in the second territory, and those in the second with those in the third, and so on all the way around the globe - and finally the birds of the last territory can again mate with those in the first. However, it turns out that the birds cannot mate with birds several territories away. Our convenient species definition breaks apart.
Tor
about my former school's mascot?
OK, let's get one thing straight. I am a christian, and I believe many things that folks here on slashdot would likely have me strung up for.
The point here, however, is that when folks that have an agenda immediately jump on something that MIGHT be remotely related, they tend to make themselves look like the donkeys in this story when they are proven wrong.
Slightly longer version -- Science is still growing and changing every day. I doubt that there are many (if any) scientists out there that say that science has all the answers today, or that science ever will. Kinda like the old expression -- "The more you know, the more you realize you don't know".
If you want to push a creationist agenda, don't jump like an idiot. Wait, think, and have logical and intelligent conversations. There are plenty of paradoxes and uncertainties in christianity too, let's not forget that the point is that humans are imperfect and fallable.
What you're saying amounts to people that used to bash Christopher Columbus for believing the world is round. "Oh look, another ship dropped off the face of the earth, never to return. You idiot. God designed the world to be flat, it's obvious! Maybe he's trying to tell you something by never having ships return." That, or something like "You're not supposed to fly, if so, God would have given you wings."
Again, I am a Christian, but I believe that as humans we are pretty darn smart, and can figure out most things. Don't sell science short just because it doesn't have the answer you want TODAY.
I don't think they know who the dad is, but they said the little one looks a lot like a donkey...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
"The donkey has 62 chromosomes (31 pairs), the horse 64 (32 pairs) and the mule and hinny each have 63 chromosomes - of which many pairs are unevenly matched. It is not just the number of chromosomes which is different in donkeys and horses, but their structure: they have developed slightly differently over evolutionary time....The donkey and horse chromosomes are almost completely unable to pair up."
It's amazing that mules turn out as well as they do. If carrying heavy packs all day and being beaten daily by a bowlegged man with whiskey breath is your idea of turning out well.
Now that's some half-assed science.
"We must cultivate our garden." -- Voltaire
i'm not surprised.
it's happened before with some decent results.
though i haven't checked it on wine...
i think we need to encourage this sort of thing, get back to the roots, you know?
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
If I didn't blow my chance on the quick watermelon remark, you'd have at least one 'Insightful' right now. Good statement.
HURD - Hurd's Under Research & Development
Hey, Yoda's posting on /.
m.
My parents met in Venezuala, working for shell oil, in the late 1940s. Shell had a company store where the North American employees could buy stuff you couldn't normally get in Venezuala. They had North American bungaloes for the North American employees. They had a little school with a North American teacher (my mom) for their children.
Like other North Americans my parents had a local cleaning lady. Unlike some of the other North Americans my parents learned Spanish.
My mom told how she taught Dahlia, how to prepare potatoes North American style. Including baking them. You peirce the skin so the steam can escape. I know most people do this by poking them with a fork. But in my family we cut a small X in the skin.
My mom's spanish wasn't yet sufficient to explain why you cut an X however.
A couple of days later there was an explosion in the kitchen. Dahlia is standing over the oven door, covered with exploded baked potatoe.
She was hysterical, and very apologetic. She told my mother that she realized she must have been very religious. But, she was in a hurry, and just this once, she thought that God would forgive her if she blessed the potatoes by putting the sign of the cross in them after they were baked, not before.
Dahlia couldn't explain this explosion, except to think it was a miracle. God punished her for not blessing the potatoe with a cross.
So, was it really a miracle? Of course not. Does an inability to explain a phenomenon mean that it is the reuslt of supernatural intervention? Of course not. Not with exploding potatoes, or with unexplained births.
You uslesse waste of carbon.
Geek alert.
Oh - wait. This is slashdot. Nevermind, please continue.
HURD - Hurd's Under Research & Development
A fertile M.U.L.E. - we could have used one of those on planet Irata. ... wonder if I can genetically engineer them to be born already outfitted for Smithore?
Above comment is a pseudoscience troll.
Do you have no fucking sense of humor?
For some of us, it's developed some more since the 6th grade. Your joke was lame. If you can't stand criticism of your pathetic attempts at humor, then why are you posting on a moderated forum?
And some of the are far from normal.
Funniest thing I read in a while. Thanks!
The beeb and the British Mule org may have said mules are infertile because they have an odd number of chromosomes. But I am skeptical.
Here is an excerpt from a page about the Przewalski Horse
So, even if this site is mistaken to say that the 65 chromosome hybrid is fertile, what if you crossed a 62 chromosome Ass with a 66 chromosome Przewalski's Horse? That hybrid would have 64 chromosomes. Would that make it fertile?
Dang, you beat me to it!
That last line you threw in was fucking hilarious! Damn, that caught me off-guard.
The Second Foundation isn't going to like this.
Normally a mule has 63 chromosomes according to the article (presumably 62 paired donkey/horse and one paired horse/horse).
... but then again, there wasn't much in the article either.
However, this mule suffers a form of "mule Down's syndrome" - she only has 62 pairs. The father is a donkey. There is a match in the number of chromosomes.
So, what is considered a genetic disability in humans could possibly be considered a genetic advantage in mules.
Note: no science whatsoever backs this theory as far as I know
There are three different species of Zebra, including the Quagga , which genetic analysis shows to be a subspecies of the Plains zebra.
Ooh! Ahh! That's how it always starts. Then later there's running and screaming...
Nature will find a way.
... not blessing the potatoe with a cross.
Great story, Mr. Vice President!
great story, nuf said
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Has anyone ever mated mules? can you get male mules? what about a mule and a donkey, anybody care to explain the different combos?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
But what if this were a Virgin Mule Birth? Should the faithful chant Hail Mares?
I just heard some sad news on talk radio. Horror/Sci-Fi author Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home. There weren't any further details. Even if you never read any of his books, there's no denying his impact on popular culture. Truly an American icon.
Execellent post.
Scott.
Could it be possible that that mules don't reproduce very often due to the fact that no one tries to reproduce them due to the fact that its "common knowledge" that mules can't reproduce?
A horse has 64 chromosomes and a donkey has 62, so a mule is left with 63, an uneven number which cannot divide into chromosome pairs. This should make a mule unable to reproduce.
So how many does this baby mule have? Did it manage to end up with an odd number, or did it end up with an even number due to one of its mule parents having the mule equivilent of downs syndrome?
My ASS !!!!!
YOu thought my joke wasnt funny, fine, thank you for posting your opinion. However, my complaint is not that someone thinks im not funny, my complaint is that the mod it down as a troll, off topic or any other such crap, which keeps anyone else from seeing it. If they dont think its funny, fine. Leave it the fuck alone. DOnt mod it down.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Nobody said the mother mule was a virgin...
Creation of Life... gee whiz!!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Przewalski's Horse [okstate.edu] is pretty interesting. Something like 150 of these equids survive. All in zoos.
Just to be clear, that count is for North America only -- at least, according to the referenced Web document.
Are there known hybrids/half-breeds can have normal fertility, as opposed to requiring a "miracle" to occur?
Short answer: YES. There are very many recorded cases of animals and plants of different species hybridizing and the descendants being fertile. Depends on the species involved, some hybrids are sterile, some are not. They often are. But that hybrids are sterile is a myth.
``L'imagination au povoir.''
(a) freak birth by a mule
or
(b) sex with a mare
Writers imply. Readers infer.
I can't help but reinforce what was said earlier about depending on various species. All species are to have an even set of chromosomes, but you can't count on playboy bunny taking it from Black Beauty and expect to get a centaur. Nor can you expect a ass with 62 chromosomes and a Przewalski horse with 66 chromosomes to produce the offspring. If the Hybrid was possible, and had 64 chromosomes, the odds are that two of the chromosomes would have not have pairs. Pairing of the chromosomes being the most important part of genetic structure.
Place something witty here
...every panda that wouldn't screw to save its species.
Is it? Can you explain this to me?
First, let me restate this, so I am sure we mean the same thing. You are saying that paired chromosomes are necessary for an animal to breed true with its peers, is this correct? You are not saying that having paired chromosomes are necessary for an offspring to be born, because mules obviously don't fulfill this condition.
So, how did the proto-equid, that was the ancestor of both Asses and the Horse split into two species with different numbers of chromosomes?
So, what about Down's syndrome individuals, who have an extra copy of chromosome 21? They don't fulfill your requirement for an even number of chromosomes. Yet I don't believe they are sterile.
Like MS-Windows programs, our chromosomes contain a lot of code bloat.
I heard a lecture about this, when I was in high school. So this info may be incorrect, and I would welcome correction. That lecture included slides of individuals born with chromosome abnormalities. Our chromosomes vary in size. And they are numbered in order of size. The lecturer showed some individuals with an abnormality on a larger chromosome. She said that these individuals were more profoundly affected and had more health problems and more profound cognitive challenges than Down's Syndrome individuals. She said that abnormalities on the larger chromosomes result in problemso profound that the children are spontaneously aborted before they come to term.
Then there are chromosome abnormality of the X and Y. Turner's syndrome women lack a sex chromosome. They have a single X and no Y. They are of normal intelligence. But they never go through puberty, so they can't have children. There are people who have XXY and XYY. I don't believe they are sterile either. Another slashdotter said something about XXX women - women with three X chromosomes.
Since that lecture I have heard that some Down's symdrome individuals have only a fraction of the extra 21, and that there are less profoundly affected than individuals with a full extra chromosome 21.
Genes slip around. They slip from chromosome to chromosome. I saw a science documentary about how genes were slipping from the Y to the X. I am not a molecular biologist, but I imagine that 61 of the 62 chromomosomes of Horses and Asses correspond, and that sometime after they split into different species one of the chromosomes split in two. If this was the case, there would be genes for the same traits in the chromosomes from both parents, even though they had them on different chromosomes.
There was an article in Scientific American, on mule fertility about 45 years ago. It advanced a theory about Mule fertility, that Mules produce gametes, eggs and sperm, but that almost all of them contain a mixture of Ass and Horse chromosomes. And those would be no good. But occasionally a gamete is produced that has all the gametes from a single parent. IIRC the theory was that that gamete could be fertilized and brought to term. That offspring would be pure Horse or pure Ass. "One in million" is the estimate of how often a mule brings an offspring to term. Check my math. If this theory is correct
Here is something I don't understand. That documentary said that some of the genes on the Y are duplicated dozens of times. So, why does the mere single extra copy of genes in chromosome 21 cause the profound manifestations of Down's? Does each gene contain the molecular equivalent of an instruction pointer, or a map of bad sectors?
>However, from memory, I think that the number of chromosomes of triticale and similar hybrids is the sum of the number of chromosomes in the parent stock, not the average.
Yes, it's called hybrids stabilized by polyploidy. Common in plants. The new number is (obviously) even, so there in no problem during segregation of chromosome pairs (this is what screws up gametes of some hybrids).
But this is not alwasy neccesary; many related species have the same chromosome number, so there is no problem to begin with.
``L'imagination au povoir.''