Re: neandertal/thal debate. Can aanybody give me an example of when 2 species of primates have interbred?

Question

Re: neandertal/thal debate. Can aanybody give me an example of when 2 species of primates have interbred?

Answer 1

I think lemurs may occaisionally interbreed. But the great apes (Humans, Gorillas, Orangutans, Chimpanzees and Bonobos) cannot interbreed as far as I'm aware and geographically should never meet in the wild.

Answer 2

Well, the whole debate is whether they were part of our own species or not.  The anthropologists that support interbreeding refer to them as Homo sapiens neandertalensis, and us as Homo sapiens sapiens.

Those who do NOT believe that we interbred refer to them as Homo neandertalensis.

If you think about it, the modern definitions of "species" all require living organisms to study.  Determining whether fossils are members of a "species" is a lot trickier, and therefore much more contentious.

Mostly, we look at the amount of variation that is present in modern humans, and we assume that that is a reasonable amount for the past.  However, Homo sapiens were much more variable in the Upper Paleolithic than they are now.

Paleoanthropologists who tend to err on the side of conservatism, and assign many fossils to the same species, are called "lumpers."  Those who are tempted to assign each new fossil to a different species are called "splitters."

For example, Milford Wolpoff is an extreme "lumper."  He thinks that everyone from Homo erectus on is really the same species.

Examples of splitters are those who recognise species such as "Homo heidelbergensis" and "Homo ergaster."  There's a dangerous lure to splitting - those who find a new fossil are tempted to assign it to a new species so that they can become well-established.

Most anthropologists tread the middle ground between extreme "lumpers" and extreme "splitters."

Answer 3

No, since modern humans and chimpanzees (two most closely related primates) cannot, well.....there is 'Oliver' the humanzee (don't ask, lol). This is precluded on the grounds that these two species diverged from a common hominoid ancestor about 6 million years ago and inter-species interbreeding is confined to Dr. Moreau's island, I'm afraid! Man and chimpanzees also have 23 and 24 pairs of chromosomes respectively, so viable fertilization is not possible.

As for inter-hominid breeding, i.e. between human-like ancestors like Homo neanderthalensis and sapiens, it is believed that such was possible, but no trace of their DNA remains in the modern human record, I believe. Their hybrid descendants have either been expunged due to natural selection or, more likely, the more intelligent, stronger and more ritually advanced Neanderthals were aggressively out-competed by the guileful, more adaptive post-Ice Age humans, exhibiting a lack of altruism readily identifiable today, in my opinion. The concept of the 'genetic bottleneck' ('The 7 Sisters of Eve') occured too early to account for the absence of non-sapiens DNA.

As a final point, it is interesting to note that the last 10,000 years has been the first time in the c. 5 million years of human evolution that only one family of humans has inhabited this planet. Now.....if we could only all get along!

Answer 4

well, the one that produced modern homo sapiens comes immediately to mind...

Answer 5

The definition of species generally means they don't interbreed.  I did read that they believed there was a hybrid between our ancestor and the chimp about 6 million years ago.  Obviously, they were pretty closely related species.  I am highly suspect of the evidence and conclusions but they were highly regarded.

Answer 6

john prescott