eli5 if horses can breed with donkeys and goats can mate with sheep why can’t we make human / ape cross overs?
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In theory this can happen, but in the case of goats/sheep and horses/donkey that breeding was done by humans for a specific purpose. Wolfotes and Ligers are pretty uncommon in the wild.
Humans and bonobos are about as different chromosomally as members of the equidae family that we know can reproduce and create sterile offspring. The issue is that it isn’t solely about the chromosome similarity, it is about how those chromosomes produce traits that can be compatible. Even though the chromosomal differences between equine species, and between homo and pan genus are about the same, the differences they produce in body plan and hormones *is* significantly different. If we had another species in the homo genus (like a neanderthal) we *could* hybridize with them. In fact, we did.
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