eli5. When species are crossbred, do the offspring have a combination of both species? instincts? and if scientists were to splice together multiple species or edit DNA or create a species or something in a laboratory, would it have natural instincts? are the instincts coded into DNA?
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The first question is whether or not the offspring would be viable…meaning whether it would even survive. That depends on what species bred together. Often, the resulting offspring isn’t viable and either doesn’t develop in the womb, is stillborn, or dies shortly after birth.
IF it was viable, it would likely display characteristics and instincts of both species. A great example of this would be a Mule (horse x donkey) which displays some of the best characteristics of both species (depending on how you define “best”). We obviously also see this in dogs which are bred to improve physical traits, hunting instincts, etc.
Many basic instincts and intellectual abilities are inherited so the offspring would likely show *some* characteristics of each parent but probably not 100% of both. There’s going to be a counterbalance or middle ground between the two sets of parental DNA.
When you start talking about manually editing and manipulating DNA, theoretically anything is possible, but I don’t know enough about that to give more information.
Hopefully this answer was helpful.
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