[thechat] RE: Alien half breeds (WAS: Boring)

[Ron White]

ST "sort of" explained this with the episode of the ancient species seeding
their DNA on a bunch of planets...

Thanks,
Ron White

-----Original Message-----
From: thechat-admin at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:thechat-admin at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf Of
martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2001 4:58 AM
To: thechat at lists.evolt.org
Subject: Re: [thechat] RE: Alien half breeds (WAS: Boring)



Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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Please respond to thechat at lists.evolt.org

Sent by:  thechat-admin at lists.evolt.org

To:   thechat at lists.evolt.org
cc:
Subject:  [thechat] RE: Alien half breeds (WAS: Boring)

>At 11:30 PM 10/17/2001, you wrote:
>>It's time to discuss last night's episode of Enterprise.  Was it a repeat
of
>>the first one or what?  I saw some Klingon's, an Alien form that had
>>problems with their warp drive, chief engineer of Enterprise got
>>pregnant.... I never saw the first episode.  Was this one new?

>That's one thing that really bugs me - the ease with which one species can
>make another pregnant.

Isn't the definition of a species boundary that the members of different
groups *can't*
interbreed?

Thus all domestic cats (Felis Cattus) can interbreed as they're variations
of the same species
(subspecies), but domestic cats can't intebreed with Ocelots (Felis
[Leopardus] Pardalis).

Ah, close - different species can't *viably* interbreed:
http://www.best.com/~sirlou/catspecies.html

        Generally speaking, two dissimi-
        lar animals belonging to the same genus are considered as belonging
to
        different species if they do not interbreed and produce viable off-
        spring:  they either physically cannot interbreed, such as a puma
and
        a housecat (boggles the mind, not to mention the housecat!); would
not
        interbreed naturally, such as a jaguar and a leopard, which just
don't
        have the right smells and signals to inspire mating; or their off-
        spring would be sterile, such as a lion and a tiger, whose offspring
        is a "liger" if the father is a lion or a "tigon" if he is a tiger,
        but is always sterile.  Conversely, if two such animals do
interbreed
        and produce viable offspring, they naturally and quickly become the
        same species even if they weren't to start with -- interbreeding
will
        do that sort of thing -- though they may maintain enough differences
        to be classed as separate subspecies.

[snip]

        Differing species come about through isolation.  If some members of
a
        species become separated from the main body of their species by dis-
        tance or natural obstruction, they will eventually evolve into a
        different species, losing the ability to interbreed.

Cheers
Martin

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