Rare 'goat-sheep' born on Irish farm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26870598

by adarshr • 12 years ago

131 108 12 years ago

bbc.co.uk

Revex2• 12 years ago

While I find this fascinating, it does seem a bit curious to post this in a hacker forum. I was half way expecting to read that the farmer had been "bio-hacking" trying to come up with a healthy hybrid.

pmurphyirl• 12 years ago

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

jonsen• 12 years ago

You mean expecting a guman?

api_or_ipa• 12 years ago

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

Revex2• 12 years ago

Hacking != Engineering

wmil• 12 years ago

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

rqebmm• 12 years ago

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

orky56• 12 years ago

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.

dang8• 12 years ago

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.

dpeck• 12 years ago

"Paddy Murphy"

theres no way this is real, right?

mjudge260• 12 years ago

Leave generic irish names out of this :P ;)

leoc2• 12 years ago

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

donohoe• 12 years ago

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

anigbrowl• 12 years ago

It's totally real.

lacero• 12 years ago

I wonder what it tastes like. I love the taste of lamb but cannot stand the taste (and smell!) of goat meat even though it's a delicacy where I'm from.

logfromblammo• 12 years ago

Better name it Swapfile, because clearly this system doesn't have enough ram.

explorigin• 12 years ago

Hacker News has officially replaced Slashdot with this comment.

mildtrepidation2• 12 years ago

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

geuis• 12 years ago

How closely related are the two species. Hybrids between species of horses and cats are common. Same for canines. But it didn't occur to me that wheels and goats are that closely related

leoc2• 12 years ago

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

ShaneOG• 12 years ago

Goat + Wheel = Gwheel, Whoat ?

ChuckMcM• 12 years ago

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".

Blahah3• 12 years ago

It's geep, with hard 'g' as in 'go'

maccard• 12 years ago

well, is it a goat or a joat?

grey4133• 12 years ago

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...

jeremyjh• 12 years ago

There are multiple species of cats (e.g. domestic, bobcat, leopard) and some can interbreed.

giardini• 12 years ago

Humans and gorillas? What about our ancestors and those of pigs? I found this hypothesis fascinating:

"A chimp-pig hybrid origin for humans?"

http://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html

from the article:

" I asked McCarthy if he could give a date estimate for the hybridization event, he said that there are a couple broad possibilities: (1) It might be that hybridization between pigs and apes produced the earliest hominids millions of years ago and that subsequent mating within this hybrid swarm eventually led to the various hominid types and to modern humans; (2) separate crosses between pigs and apes could have produced separate hominids (and there's even a creepy possibility that hybridization might even still be occurring in regions where Sus and Pan still seem to come into contact, like Southern Sudan)."

riffraff• 12 years ago

I believe GP meant canine (wolves and dogs) and felines (tiger and lion) which interbreed "frequently".

thret• 12 years ago

Are you implying that the story "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" By H. P. Lovecraft is not in fact so far-fetched at all? That such a thing is possible?

Blahah3• 12 years ago

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...

drcode• 12 years ago

Hybrids between species of horses and cats are common

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

adamnemecek• 12 years ago

Hybrids between species of horses and cats are common.

I was really confused for a second there.

dhughes• 12 years ago

The super rare Hat.

cwal37• 12 years ago

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.

randallu• 12 years ago

My understanding is that human-neanderthal interbreeding rarely resulted in viable offspring (though some did, and is where blonde/ginger hair and blue eyes come from in modern humans).

Is that similar here? Are there traits in modern goats or sheep that came from the other?

iotopper2014• 12 years ago

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...

nnq• 12 years ago

...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?

a8da6b0c91d• 12 years ago

Most Europeans have Neanderthal genes.

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/04/neandertals-gave-europe...

arethuza• 12 years ago

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

eps3• 12 years ago

@lacero - you are hell-banned

dang8• 12 years ago

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.

watsitbang• 12 years ago

I guess we've just found out how we're going to be treated by the new moderators.

eps was obviously trying to be helpful to lacero. If lacero was hell-banned, he wouldn't know it to email you, would he? And for his trouble he gets this mean reply from you.

morbius• 12 years ago

Using florid vocabulary doesn't legitimize your heavy-handed slap on the wrist to eps, who was, however misunderstood -- trying to help a fellow user. The pg way was to just state what needed to be said and do what needed to be done, not make examples out of innocent people.

Shame on you, Daniel.

eps3• 12 years ago

1. Emailing is not a viable option. I simply don't have email setup on all but one device that I use to browse HN.

2. You can nitpick on technicalities, but it doesn't matter to lacero if he was hell-banned or ip-blacklisted. All that matters is that his comments go in trash can and that's what I was trying to rectify.

PS. A proper way to support these cases is to add "flag for mod review" option to dead comments and/or user accounts. Unlike the email option, it would be actually usable for everyone. Until then I will keep posting "hell-banned" when I see an account with auto-killed, but otherwise reasonable comments. Have a nice weekend.

ealloc• 12 years ago

Such a creature is called a "musimones", as I recently learned from reading "Natural Magicks" by Porta, an endearingly incorrect popular science book from 1584. I quote his discussion of these creatures below. The rest of the book is quite amusing.

http://www.mindserpent.com/American_History/books/Porta/jpor...

------------

There is a beast called "Musimones", gendered of a Goat and a Ram. Pliny says, that in Spain, but especially in Corsica, there are beasts called Musimones not much unlike to Sheep, which have Goats hair, but in other parts, Sheep; the young ones which are gendered of them, coupling with Sheep, are called by the Ancients, Umbri. Strabo calls them Musimones. But Albertus calls them Musini or Musimones, which are gendered of a Goat and a Ram. I have heard that in Rhetia, in Helvetian confines, there are generated certain beasts, which are Goats in the hinder parts, but in the former parts, Sheep or Rams; but they cannot live long, but commonly they die, as soon as they are born. And that there the Rams being grown in years, are very strong and lustful, and so often times meet with Goats, do run over them, and that the young ones which wild Rams beget of tame Sheep, are color like the sire, and so is their breed after them; and the wool of the first breed is shaggy, but in their after-breed soft and tender.

Blahah3• 12 years ago

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):

------------

"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...

viraptor• 12 years ago

the farmer said he was not planning to send the geep for slaughter

I'm ignorant about most things farm-related, but maybe someone knows what rules apply to meat coming from unusual mixes? I assume it's harmless to eat it, but would it be legal to sell?

repsilat2• 12 years ago

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...

jnbiche• 12 years ago

It's almost certainly sterile. Look at what happens to mules, and horses and donkeys appear to have diverged closer in time than goats and sheep.

Houshalter6• 12 years ago

It might also be of benefit to introduce it's genes back into the population. Diversity is usually good and maybe goats have some genes that are beneficial to sheep or vice versa. As far as I know, most hybrids are sterile though.

jhprks• 12 years ago

Goat and a sheep? that's disgusting... just totally inhumane for farmers to allow something so horrible to happen... I'm really worried about the future of the human society, what next? a dog and a cat? a human being and a chimpanzee? bunch of perverted maniacs deface what it means to be human, to be pure beings under name of Jesus Christ, we should all repent for our sins to the lord and the savior who created us 6000 years ago.

hasbeen2• 12 years ago

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!

slagfart• 12 years ago

Yeah! HN is too sensible and having just migrated from /. I want some ignorance, indignation and quotes from Our Lord in the comments to warm up my day.

Not even kidding! :D

hasbeen2• 12 years ago

I hope people actually listen to the interview, some of the quoting can be taken out of context. I'm from an Irish framing background, and wasa little scared of the way this might be taken. I think it is worthy of hn, looking at things from a difference prospective but i quietly hope it doesn't rank high.

lugg• 12 years ago

All I could think was what does it taste like..

Seriously interesting though how closely related are the two species?

JshWright• 12 years ago

Bizarrely enough, this article caused me to lose an argument with my sister-in-law... Months ago she insisted such a hybrid would be called a 'geep.' I agreed with the general idea, but felt it would be better if it were spelled 'gheep'...

For the record, I still think my spelling is better...

nickjamespdx• 12 years ago

Proud parents. http://thebentangle.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/goat-and-she...

Rare 'goat-sheep' born on Irish farm

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