O.K., there’s nothing in the news I really feel compelled to talk about (Stephen Colbert has issued the definitive statement on the Cliven Bundy case, and nobody needs to say another word), and here is a story which is probably totally irrelevant, (with video) so that is enough of a confluence for me. A zonkey (half zebra, half donkey) has been born at a zoo in Mexico.
Different, but Loved
This kind of thing happens occasionally in the natural kingdom and we think it’s cute. There are ligers (lion/tiger offspring), grolar bears (grizzly/polar), and dogs have been known to interbreed with wolves, and dingoes.
If it happened with humans, we’d probably think it was pretty gross. Stalin wanted to breed humans with chimpanzees but, of course, Stalin was a psychopathic maniac. It didn’t work out. First, it proved difficult to find human volunteers. Of course, for Joe Stalin, that was less than an insurmountable obstacle, but there was the problem that it just didn’t work. There’s only about a 1 or 2% difference between human and chimpanzee, but that 2% is significant.
Apparently, zebras and donkeys, polar bears and grizzly bears, and dogs and wolves are apparently closer than that. Also, they don’t have the judgmental mindset that humans do. The zebra who is the mother of this little stripy socked cutie is apparently totally happy with him, and doesn’t give a shit what anybody thinks.
It makes me wonder what other species might be able to interbreed, and if this could bring any advantages to the human race. I know there have been attempts to breed cows with bison, just to have bigger beef cows, but I don’t know if that’s been successful, or why beef farmers aren’t just trying to breed more bison.
Maybe this could be the solution to the bumblebee problem. If they could interbreed them with, say, for instance, houseflies, which are far too numerous to ever go extinct, it may be the thing that saves mankind.
So, not a completely irrelevant topic, after all.
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