No, gorillas and chimpanzees cannot mate. The two species are evolutionarily too distant and their DNA is too dissimilar for a gorilla and a chimpanzee to produce offspring.
He said: “All of the available evidence both fossil, palaeontological and biochemical, including DNA itself, suggests that humans can also breed with gorillas and orang-utans. “Humans and all three of the great apes species are all descended from a single common apelike ancestry.
Biologically, it is possible for a chimpanzee and a gorilla to have viable, fertile offspring, Williams said.
Sister great ape species within the same genus can interbreed and produce fertile offspring in zoos, but not in the wild where their ranges generally do not overlap.
Orangutans and Gorillas evolved separately for millions of years and are much further apart genetically from humans and chimpanzees, so it is improbable that natural mating would produce viable offspring.
Humans and chimps have DNA that is 95 percent similar, and 99 percent of our DNA coding sequences are the same as well. However, humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes in our DNA, while chimps only have 22. The difference makes bearing healthy young difficult, and the offspring would be infertile.
Although in the classical view species are not supposed to be able to interbreed successfully, that was and still is not always true of bonobos and chimpanzees, says Christina Hvilsom, a conservation geneticist at the Copenhagen Zoo.
In fact, such human-animal hybrids are often referred to as “chimeras”.
The chimpanzee and bonobo are humans' closest living relatives. These three species look alike in many ways, both in body and behavior. But for a clear understanding of how closely they are related, scientists compare their DNA, an essential molecule that's the instruction manual for building each species.
Well-documented cases of natural hybridization among primates are not common. In New World primates, natural hybridization has been reported only for small-bodied species, but no genotypic data have ever been gathered that confirm these reports.
Silvery Langur monkey (L), hybrid monkey (Inset) and a Proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus) (R). A hybrid monkey has been discovered, which is the offspring of these two species: Proboscis monkey and a Silvery Langur. Getty/Nicole Lee / International Journal of Primatology.
Despite their intimidating appearance, gorillas are generally docile creatures, much more gentle than their chimp cousins. They also share 98% of human DNA.
Gorillas share 98.3% of their DNA with humans, making them our closest cousins after chimpanzees and bonobos.
Impregnation: Impregnation is actually the fertilization process in which sperm and ovum fuse to produce a zygote. Naturally, a human cannot impregnate a pig as there are many reproduction barriers between them.
Although it's hard to say anything with absolute certainty, human DNA is so different to even our closest relatives that interbreeding is probably impossible. Despite this, Gallup believes that it is possible to crossbreed humans with great apes, including gorillas and orangutans.
No, your sperm isn't compatible with the eggs of a goat or another animal. It's like attempting to put two different puzzle pieces together - they won't fit! Female eggs have receptors, and your sperm will not fertilize the eggs of another animal.
Probably not. Ethical considerations preclude definitive research on the subject, but it's safe to say that human DNA has become so different from that of other animals that interbreeding would likely be impossible.
"The big picture is that we're perhaps 98 percent identical in our sequences to gorillas. So that means most of our genes are very similar, or even identical to, the gorilla version of the same gene," said Chris Tyler-Smith, a geneticist at Wellcome Trust.
Koalas have fingerprints almost identical to ours | NOVA | PBS.
Thus, privacy, or perhaps more accurately, seclusion, allowed the male to maintain control over a sexual partner—while also allowing for continued cooperation within a group.
As some of the first bands of modern humans moved out of Africa, they met and mated with Neandertals about 100,000 years ago—perhaps in the fertile Nile Valley, along the coastal hills of the Middle East, or in the once-verdant Arabian Peninsula.
Humans do it faster: True, to an extent. A large-scale study found that human copulation lasts five minutes on average, although it may rarely last as long as 45 minutes.
Bonobos become sexually aroused remarkably easily, and they express this excitement in a variety of mounting positions and genital contacts. Although chimpanzees virtually never adopt face-to-face positions, bonobos do so in one out of three copulations in the wild.
LiveScience: The earliest known ancestors of modern humans might have reproduced with early chimpanzees to create a hybrid species, a new genetic analysis suggests. The earliest known ancestors of modern humans might have reproduced with early chimpanzees to create a hybrid species, a new genetic analysis suggests.
Female bonobos, it seems, derive more pleasure from sexual engagement with other females. This may also allow them to establish themselves as equal to the males in the community — by sticking together.