eli5 Why isnt reproduction possible between humans and animals (especially monkeys)?
In: Biology
1. The sperm can’t enter the egg because it doesn’t have the correct key (enzyme)
2. The blueprint’s (DNA) are organised on different pages (chromosomes) and for the blueprints to work both pages need to be there and with the same layout or problems happen. For instance, chimpanzee have two more pages (chromosomes) than humans even though our blueprints are similar, because one of our pages is basically two of the chimpanzees pages stuck together.
Edit: Of note, Donkeys and Horse have the same difference in chromosomes. But they have a lot more chromosomes, so the effect of the unmatched chromosomes would be less.
Things are a lot more complex than this, as most of the donkey and horse chromosomes don’t match up. It has to do more with if what is produced by the genes conflict or compliment.
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