A new genome sequencing study in ScienceAdvances has uncovered the earliest known evidence of hybrid animal breeding, confirming that mysterious 4500-year-old equid skeletons most likely belonged to domesticated hybrid animals called kungas.
). For the reference equids, genomic tree topology is similar in both the full mitogenome and genome tree topology obtained with different methods . The Persian onager and the hemippes are closely related, and the Mongolian khulans and the Tibetan kiangs are even more closely related. In this respect, the genetic distances between the various hemiones correspond to the geographic distances between their native range .
Expectedly, the 19th to 20th century hemippes, representing some of the last survivors of the subspecies, are genetically similar, whereas the ~11,000-year-old Göbekli Tepe hemippe is more divergent . We also noted that the divergence between the three sequenced hemippes is much larger than that observed between the six domestic donkeys .
It has been noted that the Syrian wild ass , whose range once extended across the Levant, was the smallest form of modern equids (
Ireland Latest News, Ireland Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Part donkey, part wild ass, the kunga is the oldest known hybrid bred by humansSyria’s 4,500-year-old kungas were donkey-wild ass hybrids, genetic analysis reveals, so the earliest known example of humans crossing animal species.
Read more »
Africa’s Earliest Human Burial Comes to LightA 78,000-year-old fossil found on Kenya’s coast suggests that our ancestors interred the deceased with care.
Read more »
The first successful pig heart transplant into a human was a century in the makingThe working, beating genetically modified pig’s heart saved the life of a 57-year-old man with a life-threatening heart condition.
Read more »
Can Animals Learn Language Like Humans Do?There's plenty of animals that can communicate. But true linguistic mastery in the animal kingdom is harder to pin down.
Read more »
How Too Many Boys Skew China’s EconomyThe Chinese government’s fight to control housing prices and insulate the economy is bound up with some very fundamental human impulses—and decisions made decades ago.
Read more »