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| A new species of living great ape! | |
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| Topic Started: Nov 2 2017, 12:05 PM (1,146 Views) | |
| Tartarus | Nov 3 2017, 08:15 PM Post #31 |
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Prime Specimen
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But what about the whole thing about how interspecies hybrids are usually sterile? If endangered animals keep producing sterile offspring this will prevent their lineages from continuing on into the future and increases their chances of extinction, so in that context people being critical of hybrids in conservation is quite rational and not at all the "preserve the status quo" silliness you seem to be painting it all as. |
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| HangingThief | Nov 3 2017, 10:24 PM Post #32 |
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ghoulish
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People hate hybrids because they cause confusion. It's often hard enough to tell different species apart without hybrids to mess everything up. If you don't care about preserving the purity of species or locales that are very similar anyway, even very different species might not show signs of being hybrids until they've matured enough to develop their distinctive features. In tarantulas this typically takes years, and they're usually sold long before then. |
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Hey. | |
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| Hybrid | Nov 3 2017, 11:08 PM Post #33 |
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May Specula Grant you Bountiful Spec!
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I think I can honestly say if there was any accidental admixture between these two populations of orangutan, it's not a huge issue. As long as we can keep those two species alive, a little mixing is harmless in the long run. Hybridization in nature is common, it happens a lot. It's so well known we have terms to describe places where it's relatively common in the wild: hybrid zones. Depending on how well defined the populations are, we can divide them further into primary and secondary hybrid zones too. Many species today are the result of hybridization, such as the wisent (likely the result of mixing of aurochs and the steppe bison) or the weird bat Artibeus schwartzi (a three-way hybrid). Many creatures we have today that seem super unique also had some hybridization in the past. One example that comes to mind are polar bears and brown bears, which have mixed a few times in the past, leading to some populations of brown bears being more closely related to polar bears than others. What many conservationists want to do is retain a populations 'uniqueness' in the wild and avoid messing with it. The best case situation is return them to a state that they were, before us humans messed with them on the levels we had. I think we can all agree that's a bit unrealistic, once you change something, there's no going back. I don't think there's anything wrong with attempting to retain diversity, however avoiding hybrids like the plague can be pretty silly in my opinion. In nature, a species that's dying out that has very little choices and there wasn't any barriers, would likely procreate with a closely related species. While conservationists avoid inbreeding, there's a certain point when a population is so small that's going to happen regardless. Having a population of hybrids I would argue is preferable to one made vulnerable due to forced isolated. Overall I would rather have a hybrid population of organisms, than none of it at all; having the memory of that species alive and well is better than having the only thing to remember them from being bones, photos, or taxidermy ghosts. Now when we accidentally create hybrids from invasive species that risk the native species of dying out, like mallard ducks breeding populations of other ducks into extinction or introduced species of tiger salamanders hybridizing with native species and producing super-salamanders that risk many amphibians in the ecosystem, I think that's a case were hybrids are the least desirable option.
That's not the issue. The whole problem comes when two closely related populations (species or not) can interbred and produce viable offspring. If the two species can't produce viable young whatsoever, or only in specific situations (as with how only female big cat hybrids can breed, which can produce weird things like liligers) then they aren't really going to be considered as very problematic in conservation than this problem. Those ones are controversial due to being considered a 'waste of money' or an 'abomination of nature'. That can go into a different line of debate though. What Flisch is talking about is avoiding any admixture between two populations in order to retain the status quo that existed before any anthropogenic shenanigans. Think of a 'generic' tiger, where many subspecies were bred into it, rather than something like a zonkey which is a reproductive dead end. |
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If I sound rude while critiquing, I apologize in hindsight! "To those like the misguided; look at the story of Man, and come to your senses! It is not the destination, but the trip that matters. What you do today influences tomorrow, not the other way around. Love Today, and seize All Tomorrows!" - Nemo Ramjet ノ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ヽ
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| Yiqi15 | Nov 4 2017, 09:18 AM Post #34 |
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Prime Specimen
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This thread should be renamed "Is subspecies hybridisation really that bad for conservation?". It started about an announcement of a new species orangutan, and now its about genetics. |
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Current/Completed Projects - After the Holocene: Your run-of-the-mill future evolution project. - A History of the Odessa Rhinoceros: What happens when you ship 28 southern white rhinoceri to Texas and try and farm them? Quite a lot, actually. Future Projects - XenoSphere: The greatest zoo in the galaxy. - The Curious Case of the Woolly Giraffe: A case study of an eocene relic. - Untittled Asylum Studios-Based Project: The truth behind all the CGI schlock - Riggslandia V.II: A World 150 million years in the making Potential Projects - Klowns: The biology and culture of a creepy-yet-fascinating being My Zoochat and Fadom Accounts - Zoochat - Fandom | |
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| IIGSY | Nov 4 2017, 09:48 AM Post #35 |
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A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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The differences between tiger subspecies are quite small. It really doesn't matter if they all meld together and become just tigers/ |
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Projects Punga: A terraformed world with no vertebrates Last one crawling: The last arthropod ARTH-6810: A world without vertebrates (It's ded, but you can still read I guess) Potential ideas- Swamp world: A world covered in lakes, with the largest being caspian sized. Nematozoic: After a mass extinction of ultimate proportions, a single species of nematode is the only surviving animal. Tri-devonian: A devonian like ecosystem with holocene species on three different continents. Quotes Phylogeny of the arthropods and some related groups In honor of the greatest clade of all time More pictures Other cool things All African countries can fit into Brazil
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| Archeoraptor | Nov 4 2017, 11:56 AM Post #36 |
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"A living paradox"
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for me babray lions are extinct bc they no longer live in that area not becuase of gentics |
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Astarte an alt eocene world,now on long hiatus but you never know Fanauraa; The rebirth of Aotearoa future evo set in new zealand after a mass extinction coming soon......a world that was seeded with earth´s weridest and who knows what is coming next........... " I have to know what the world will be looking throw a future beyond us I have to know what could have been if fate acted in another way I have to know what lies on the unknown universe I have to know that the laws of thee universe can be broken throw The Spec I gain strength to the inner peace the is not good of evil only nature and change,the evolution of all livings beings" " Spoiler: click to toggle | |
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| Tartarus | Nov 4 2017, 06:58 PM Post #37 |
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Prime Specimen
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Moving the discussion back on track to the Tapanuli orangutan, this species has already gotten a wikipedia page now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapanuli_orangutan |
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| flashman63 | Nov 6 2017, 12:58 AM Post #38 |
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The Herr From Terre
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Though it's horrible, this is honestly my natural reaction. |
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Travel back through time and space, to the edge of man's beggining... discover a time when man, woman and lizard roamed free, and untamed! It is an epoch of mammoths, a time of raptors! A tale of love in the age of tyrannosaurs! An epic from the silver screen, brought right to your door! Travel back to A Million Years BC ----------------------------------------------------- Proceedings of the Miskatonic University Department of Zoology Cosmic Horror is but a dissertation away ----------------------------------------------------- Some dickhead's deviantART | |
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