5 ms·

Rare 'goat-sheep' born on Irish farm

131 points by adarshr 12y ago

Revex 12y 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 12y ago
  Other than sharing my name with said farmer, I agree a bit curious to post here on HN...
- jonsen 12y ago
  You mean expecting a guman?
- api_or_ipa 12y ago
  "bio-hacking": is this what we call genetic engineering now?
  - Revex 12y ago
    Hacking != Engineering
    - mildtrepidation 12y ago
      Unless you go by recent popular usage, in which case every possible interaction with anything that is not specifically laid out in that thing's accompanying instruction manual is now considered "hacking." Case in point: Life has no instructions, so people happily call almost anything "life hacking."
- wmil 12y 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep%E2%80%93goat_chimera
- rqebmm 12y 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 http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- orky56 12y 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.
- dang 12y 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 12y ago
"Paddy Murphy" theres no way this is real, right?
- mjudge260 12y ago
  Leave generic irish names out of this :P ;)
- leoc 12y ago
  There's a Patrick Murphy on this very thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7533877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7533877 , you insensitive clod. ;P
- donohoe 12y ago
  Yes, Paddy is a common Irish shortening of Patrick. Murphy is a classic surname.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  It's totally real.
lacero 12y 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 12y ago
Better name it Swapfile, because clearly this system doesn't have enough ram.
- explorigin 12y ago
  Hacker News has officially replaced Slashdot with this comment.
- mildtrepidation 12y ago
  This comment is perfect, in that it simultaneously gets my goat and pulls the wool over my eyes.
geuis 12y 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
- leoc 12y ago
  Indeed not, apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep%E2%80%93goat_hybrid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep%E2%80%93goat_hybrid They're six chromosomes out from each other, to begin with.
- ShaneOG 12y ago
  Goat + Wheel = Gwheel, Whoat ?
- ChuckMcM 12y 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".
  - Blahah 12y ago
    It's geep, with hard 'g' as in 'go'
  - maccard 12y ago
    well, is it a goat or a joat?
- grey413 12y 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-00894491.pdf http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/89/44/91/PDF/hal-008... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolutionary_genetics#Divergence_times_and_ancestral_effective_population_size http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolutionary_genetics#Div...
randallu 12y 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 12y 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.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130170343.ht... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/science/another-genetic-quirk-of-the-solomon-islands-blond-hair.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/science/another-genetic-qu...
- nnq 12y 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 12y ago
    Most Europeans have Neanderthal genes. http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/04/neandertals-gave-europeans-lipid.html http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/04/neandertals-gave-europe...
- arethuza 12y 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair#Origins
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
eps 12y ago
@lacero - you are hell-banned
- dang 12y 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 12y 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.
    - dang 12y ago
      I try hard not to be mean. If you'd care to suggest how to improve my wording, I'd be happy to. It's possible that my frustration after a year and a half of reading such comments as eps's with no ability to reply to them leaked through. A better way for eps to help lacero, if that's all he or she wanted to do, would have been to email and ask us to check why lacero's comment was dead. We would have replied with a thank-you note saying what the reason was and that we had restored all the comments in question. But it doesn't feel to me like helping others is the only agenda going on with comments like eps's, which as you may know are something of a cottage industry on HN. How you're "going to be treated by the new moderators" is with as much fairness and clarity as we can possibly muster, and willingness to correct our mistakes.
      - supersystem 12y ago
        "with as much fairness and clarity as we can possibly muster" When it comes to exercising authority less is more. If you've ever been "forced" to smile at lame jokes from bouncers when going in to a club you probably know what I mean. Your comments reads like passive aggressive lectures rather than "fair and clear" moderation.
ealloc 12y 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/jportac2.html 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.
- Blahah 12y 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_Wallace_1889.djvu/185 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Darwinism_by_Alfred_Walla...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
viraptor 12y 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?
- repsilat 12y 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 12y 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.
    - eropple 12y ago
      While mules are overwhelmingly sterile, I thought it was neat to learn that there are instances of fertile female mules, though no male ones are on record as having been fertile.
      - repsilat 12y ago
        With fertile female individuals I'm amazed (would be amazed if?) people haven't made an effort to breed and maintain animals right along the spectrum (or at least one half of it.)
        eropple 12y ago
        There are only 60 known instances of fertile female mules in the last 500 years, according to Wikipedia, and they don't breed true - their offspring appear phenotypically to be pure donkeys or pure horses.
jhprks 12y 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.
- hasbeen 12y 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 12y 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
hasbeen 12y 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 12y ago
All I could think was what does it taste like.. Seriously interesting though how closely related are the two species?
JshWright 12y 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 12y ago
Proud parents. http://thebentangle.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/goat-and-sheep-friends.png http://thebentangle.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/goat-and-she...

131 points by adarshr 12y ago

Revex 12y 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 12y ago
Other than sharing my name with said farmer, I agree a bit curious to post here on HN...
jonsen 12y ago
You mean expecting a guman?
api_or_ipa 12y ago
"bio-hacking": is this what we call genetic engineering now?
- Revex 12y ago
  Hacking != Engineering
  - mildtrepidation 12y ago
    Unless you go by recent popular usage, in which case every possible interaction with anything that is not specifically laid out in that thing's accompanying instruction manual is now considered "hacking." Case in point: Life has no instructions, so people happily call almost anything "life hacking."
wmil 12y 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep%E2%80%93goat_chimera
rqebmm 12y 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 http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
orky56 12y 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.
dang 12y 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 12y ago

"Paddy Murphy" theres no way this is real, right?

mjudge260 12y ago
Leave generic irish names out of this :P ;)
leoc 12y ago
There's a Patrick Murphy on this very thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7533877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7533877 , you insensitive clod. ;P
donohoe 12y ago
Yes, Paddy is a common Irish shortening of Patrick. Murphy is a classic surname.
anigbrowl 12y ago
It's totally real.

lacero 12y 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 12y ago

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

explorigin 12y ago
Hacker News has officially replaced Slashdot with this comment.
mildtrepidation 12y ago
This comment is perfect, in that it simultaneously gets my goat and pulls the wool over my eyes.

geuis 12y 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

leoc 12y ago
Indeed not, apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep%E2%80%93goat_hybrid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep%E2%80%93goat_hybrid They're six chromosomes out from each other, to begin with.
ShaneOG 12y ago
Goat + Wheel = Gwheel, Whoat ?
ChuckMcM 12y 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".
- Blahah 12y ago
  It's geep, with hard 'g' as in 'go'
- maccard 12y ago
  well, is it a goat or a joat?
grey413 12y 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-00894491.pdf http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/89/44/91/PDF/hal-008... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolutionary_genetics#Divergence_times_and_ancestral_effective_population_size http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolutionary_genetics#Div...

randallu 12y 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 12y 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.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130170343.ht... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/science/another-genetic-quirk-of-the-solomon-islands-blond-hair.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/science/another-genetic-qu...
nnq 12y 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 12y ago
  Most Europeans have Neanderthal genes. http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/04/neandertals-gave-europeans-lipid.html http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/04/neandertals-gave-europe...
arethuza 12y 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair#Origins

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

eps 12y ago

@lacero - you are hell-banned

dang 12y 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 12y 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.
  - dang 12y ago
    I try hard not to be mean. If you'd care to suggest how to improve my wording, I'd be happy to. It's possible that my frustration after a year and a half of reading such comments as eps's with no ability to reply to them leaked through. A better way for eps to help lacero, if that's all he or she wanted to do, would have been to email and ask us to check why lacero's comment was dead. We would have replied with a thank-you note saying what the reason was and that we had restored all the comments in question. But it doesn't feel to me like helping others is the only agenda going on with comments like eps's, which as you may know are something of a cottage industry on HN. How you're "going to be treated by the new moderators" is with as much fairness and clarity as we can possibly muster, and willingness to correct our mistakes.
    - supersystem 12y ago
      "with as much fairness and clarity as we can possibly muster" When it comes to exercising authority less is more. If you've ever been "forced" to smile at lame jokes from bouncers when going in to a club you probably know what I mean. Your comments reads like passive aggressive lectures rather than "fair and clear" moderation.

ealloc 12y 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/jportac2.html 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.

Blahah 12y 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_Wallace_1889.djvu/185 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Darwinism_by_Alfred_Walla...

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

viraptor 12y 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?

repsilat 12y 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 12y 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.
  - eropple 12y ago
    While mules are overwhelmingly sterile, I thought it was neat to learn that there are instances of fertile female mules, though no male ones are on record as having been fertile.
    - repsilat 12y ago
      With fertile female individuals I'm amazed (would be amazed if?) people haven't made an effort to breed and maintain animals right along the spectrum (or at least one half of it.)
      - eropple 12y ago
        There are only 60 known instances of fertile female mules in the last 500 years, according to Wikipedia, and they don't breed true - their offspring appear phenotypically to be pure donkeys or pure horses.

jhprks 12y 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.

hasbeen 12y 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 12y 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

hasbeen 12y 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 12y ago

All I could think was what does it taste like.. Seriously interesting though how closely related are the two species?

JshWright 12y 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 12y ago

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