Rare 'goat-sheep' born on Irish farm (opens in new tab)

Just a slight correction: the musimones is the inverse sexual partnering - a male sheep and a female goat (as specified in the text you quote). The offspring of the hybrids referred to here as 'umbri' were also written about by Wallace in his book, on the Theory of Natural Selection (expanding on ideas he had at the same time Darwin was coming up with his theory of evolution):

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"It has been long known to shepherds, though questioned by naturalists, that the progeny of the cross between the sheep and goat is fertile. Breeds of this mixed race are numerous in the north of Europe." Nothing appears to be known of such hybrids either in Scandinavia or in Italy; but Professor Giglioli of Florence has kindly given me some useful references to works in which they are described. The following extract from his letter is very interesting: "I need not tell you that there being such hybrids is now generally accepted as a fact. Buffon (Supplements, tom. iii. p. 7, 1756) obtained one such hybrid in 1751 and eight in 1752. Sanson (La Culture, vol. vi. p. 372, 1865) mentions a case observed in the Vosges, France. Geoff. St. Hilaire (Hist. Nat. Gén. des reg. org., vol. iii. p. 163) was the first to mention, I believe, that in different parts of South America the ram is more usually crossed with the she-goat than the sheep with the he-goat. The well-known 'pellones' of Chile are produced by the second and third generation of such hybrids (Gay, 'Hist, de Chile,' vol. i. p. 466, Agriculture, 1862). Hybrids bred from goat and sheep are called 'chabin' in French, and 'cabruno' in Spanish. In Chile such hybrids are called 'carneros lanudos'; their breeding inter se appears to be not always successful, and often the original cross has to be recommenced to obtain the proportion of three-eighths of he-goat and five-eighths of sheep, or of three-eighths of ram and five-eighths of she-goat; such being the reputed best hybrids.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Darwinism_by_Alfred_Walla...

This comment is perfect, in that it simultaneously gets my goat and pulls the wool over my eyes.

Hacker News has officially replaced Slashdot with this comment.

Species don't necessarily have to be that closely related to hybridize. Compatibility is usually more complex but sometimes surprisingly more crude (when related simply to chromosome number) than a linear scaling with evolutionary time. Goats and Sheep are both in family Bovidae subfamily Caprinae. The species diverged around 7 million years ago [0]. Intra-familial (but inter-generic) hybrids are fairly well-known (savannah cats, zedonks, etc.).

Much more surprising is that people have reportedly successfully created hybrids [1] between chickens (family Phasianidae) and guinea fowl (family Numididae), which diverged around 50 million years ago [2].

Note that http://timetree.org is a beautiful service for finding out how closely related two species are (in evolutionary time).

[0] http://www.timetree.org/index.php?taxon_a=Ovis+aries&taxon_b...

[1] http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/2592/is-sexual-re...

[2] http://www.timetree.org/index.php?taxon_a=Gallus+gallus&taxo...

> Hybrids between species of horses and cats are common.

I was really confused for a second there.

Goat and sheep lineages diverged approximately five to eight million years ago[1]. For reference, human and gorilla lines diverged roughly six to eight million years ago[2].

Also, different breeds of dogs are considered the same species (and likewise with cats).

[1] http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/89/44/91/PDF/hal-008...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolutionary_genetics#Div...

I would be surprised to see a hybrid of horses and cats but it would certainly be the ideal gift kitten AND a pony!

Wondering if they pronounce 'geep' as "gee eep" or "jeep".

> Hybrids between species of horses and cats are common

Yes, they're called "hats" or "corses".

Indeed not, apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep%E2%80%93goat_hybrid They're six chromosomes out from each other, to begin with.

Dogs are one species. Their variation is a result of long-term purposeful breeding and a "slippery" genome.

Similar deal (not so much the slippery genome) for horses and housecats. I think you're confusing breeds with species.

Goat + Wheel = Gwheel, Whoat ?

My first thought was, "I hope it isn't sterile." If goat/sheep hybrids are this rare then a fertile "bridge" (even in one direction) would be of some scientific (and agricultural) interest.

Food is a distant second...

The only sins on Hacker News are being uninteresting and being rude. If PG can post about the margins of medieval manuscripts, anything interesting goes.

Given that the top comment in the thread is a relevant (and deservedly upvoted) quotation from a late-Renaissance text, I'd say we're doing pretty well here.

Actually the team that cloned "Dolly" the sheep in the 90s was making sheep-goat chimeras in the 80s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep%E2%80%93goat_chimera

>On-Topic[1]: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

I certainly found it interesting that this sort of thing is possible in nature. Other's mileage may vary but that's what the voting process is for, no?

[1]http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"bio-hacking": is this what we call genetic engineering now?

Other than sharing my name with said farmer, I agree a bit curious to post here on HN...

Many discoveries were based on unintentional or natural accidents. One could calls these hacks since they broke the conventional "usage pattern." Not necessarily for this case but in situations like these.

You mean expecting a guman?

There's a Patrick Murphy on this very thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7533877 , you insensitive clod. ;P

Yes, Paddy is a common Irish shortening of Patrick. Murphy is a classic surname.

It's totally real.

Leave generic irish names out of this :P ;)

Blue eyes is a more recent mutation [1]. Blonde hair has appeared independently several times [2].

[1] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130170343.ht...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/science/another-genetic-qu...

As a Scot I might be a bit touchy about this (Scots have the highest proportion of redheads and I carry the gene even though my hair and eyes are very dark):

"A DNA study has concluded that some Neanderthals also had red hair, although the mutation responsible for this differs from that which causes red hair in modern humans."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair#Origins

...where do you have that "understanding" from?! Are there any actual information about the 'Homo sapiens sapiens' <-> 'Homo sapiens neanderthalensis' contact and relationship or are you just spreading someone's wild guesses?

Lacero is not "hell-banned" or any other kind of banned. Lacero's comment came from an IP that had been caught by a spam filter. I just unbanned the IP and unkilled the relevant comments.

Please don't claim things on or about Hacker News that you can't possibly know are true. Concerns about dead comments and anything else about HN can be sent to hn@ycombinator.com.

Edit: I deleted things that were too harsh.

Love it! I started to get pissed off at the beginning then as I read I started to laugh out loud! As a farmer Ireland, I was really surprised to see this on here. It was like taking a coffee break from work!