• Question: why can't distant species breed?

    Asked by anon-241315 to Martin on 18 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Martin Johnsson

      Martin Johnsson answered on 18 Mar 2020:

      I’m going to answer with one of those stereotypical scientists’ answers: “That’s a whole research field of its own!” 🙂

      Because there’s a whole part of evolutionary biology where people study reproductive isolation, i.e. when and how species become separate and lose the ability to interbreed.

      It has to do with differences in DNA. For two animals to be able to interbreed successfully, their DNA needs to be reasonably similar, so that their chromosomes can pair up, and then separate properly to form eggs and sperm.

      How similar does the DNA need to be exactly? Well, no-one knows, and it probably depends from species to species.

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