Hyrbids and humanzees

I was recently watching a documentary on evolution and in one section it mentioned our close genetic relationship (95%+ identical DNA) with chimpanzees would mean in theory a human could breed successfully with a chimp, to create what has been coined a humanzee. It is a creepy thought and ethically highly questionable but some what fascinating.

But has anyone actually tried.. well actually yes a Russian scientest in the 1920's named Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov recieved funding from the Soviet government to travel to Guinea to experiment inseminating primates with human sperm... but apparently had no success. He had previously made a name for himself by creating the worlds first Zonkey, Zebra-Donkey hybrid.

A Zonkey

However humans and chimps seemed to be proving more difficult, Ilya returned to the Soviet Union and decided to try again this time on atleast five female human volunteers (doubly creepy!), but before he was able to carry out the experiment the only viable male ape at his research center died. Ilya was soon after sent into exile to the backwaters of Khazikstan by Stalin and the humanzee experiments were never continued. So officially there has been no birth or pregnancy involving a humanzee hybrid. In the 1970's there was a suspicious looking chimp called Oliver found in the Congo which had very human like characteristics such as always walking upright (bipedular) but it was later disproven to be any type of human chimp hybrid.

The story of Oliver

It is off course ethically questionable and no doubt unsettling to us the concept of a humanzee but it hasn't stopped us interbreeding other animals such as Ilya's Zonkey. Other successful dramatic animal hybrids (check out the top 10) are Wolphins (Dolphin + Whale) , Liger's (Tiger + Lion) remember Napolean Dynamite, and Cama's (Camel + Lama). Interestingly as in a Mule (Horse + Donkey) almost all inter-species animal hybrids are born sterile, a kind of evolutionary cut off point when two species grow too far apart to create another hyrbid branch.

A Liger and Wolphin

There is the cultural movement of transhumanism which believes in supporting an enhanced evolution of humans through biotechnology or other means to improve the human condition in regards to aging, disease and general physical capacity. It unlikely humanzee's are really of any benefit to the transhuman concept and no doubt as we are seeing already some major ethical questions and boundaries are arsing through genetic engineering, humanzee's are really the least of our concern. I still wonder if in the hills of Gunea or woods of Khazikstan there might be some geriatric humanzees waiting to be discovered.