Been reading about this this week, because the Paddlefish is an insane beast swimming around my local waters. I’ve never seen one, and nobody I know has either–but I’m surprised we don’t get Sea monster reports out west by the Mississippi.
From what I understand, this hybrid really shouldn’t have worked. Example: If you hybridize donkeys and horses, you get mules. That is old hat, but they are part of the same Genus at least (equus).
For comparison:
Not even the same family! This is why I think it’s got scientists all excited.
As a quick illustration of how wild this is, paddlefish and sturgeon diverge taxonomically after order.
Subspecies can interbreed. Hybrids of the same genus are common. But different families? Even at the family level, that’s like a human-bonobo hybrid. But this is order. This is like a hybrid between a human and a frickin lemur (primate order). Absolutely bonkers.
I suppose one possibility (however very unlikely) is that one or the other fish have been classified in the wrong order all this time? Whatever, I wonder if the scientists actually were working for a hybrid and fiddled with the genes in some way; that seems to me much more likely than mis-categorization. (All of this assumes that the paper is not fake.)
Not even the same family… So hybridization shouldn’t be possible?
I mean there are same genus, different species hybrids that are infertile (mules, zedonks, etc…), but different families entirely? I have to wonder if there’s some misclassification going on…
Also, are these things fertile? And, c’mon totally accidental. Who hasn’t gotten confused when the sperm flinging gets a bit crazy and grabbed sperm from the entirely incorrect species?
Is that a turkey that lays a duck egg that hatches then grows and then lays a chicken egg that hatches then grows and then WHOOMP! they all go back up the turkey?
Careful, the biological species concept you are referring to is just one amongst many. Also, biology is far more complicated than most people realise.
In this particular case, a very short glimpse into the abstract of the paper leaves me with the impression that ploidy levels are the interesting bit here.
If you want to dive down into that particular rabbit hole, go for it. Otherwise, take my word for it that the standard rule of exception in biology is “ok, why not?”.
I’ve hear that it’s an historical cooking method that the folks in the US have made their own. I suspect it’s how fast you want to through something up a birds cloaca and cook it makes it a either food to eat or cuisine!
