Mating toads leap the species barrier

	Duration: 00:44 minutes Upload Time: 2007-11-16 10:48:42 User: newscientistvideo :::: Favorites :::: Top Videos of Day
Description: Read more: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19626304.600-mating-toads-leap-the-species-barrier.html Spadefoot toads sometimes find that mating with another species produces more fit offspring.
Comments
NShimaru ::: Favorites  2007-11-16 11:08:51 The moral of this story is a weird one. go frog on frog "technical bestiality" I guess? __________________________________________________
flydarling ::: Favorites  2007-11-16 11:38:37 Fascinating. Cheers, Lesley __________________________________________________
OriginalSmohrman ::: Favorites  2007-11-16 16:10:48 Cross the species barrier you say? If it's still a frog at the end of the day (or millennium, or eon) you haven't crossed the species barrier. __________________________________________________
DelCooncat ::: Favorites  2007-11-16 19:00:33 You do realize that "frog" is not a species, right? There are more than 5,000 different species of frogs. Animals breeding outside their species is not uncommon, but producing successful offspring that way is. __________________________________________________
tacwraith ::: Favorites  2007-11-16 19:25:49 Cross-breeding between related species is not that uncommon. Many 'exotic' feline pets are created by breeders by mating a common housecat with a wild cat (like a leopard) to create, 2 or 3 generations of injecting common housecat genes; a domesticated cat that looks like a leopard. Same with dogs+wolfs or dogs+fox to create uncommon hybrid species. __________________________________________________
CreativeCritisizm ::: Favorites  2007-11-16 20:40:01 Are these hybrids able to reproduce with anything else & thus, dilute the species entirely ? __________________________________________________
Jmcenanly ::: Favorites  2007-11-17 00:43:37 How are the frogs supposed to know one species from another? __________________________________________________
sent2null ::: Favorites  2007-11-17 03:02:12 Populations of related lineage don't give a rats ass what they are mating with..if it smells close enough and looks right it will try to mate. If it works the offspring may or may not have a conferred survival advantage depending on how close those lineages are...recently it was discovered that hybridization formed a good part of the process of the human line diverging from the common ancestor 6 million years ago...this is not surprising to anyone that strictly interprets Darwin's theory. __________________________________________________
AnyKey88 ::: Favorites  2007-11-17 08:49:58 If the offspring are fertile, can reproduce, than there is no inter-species reproduction. A species, in it's basic definition, is "a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring". At best this is breeding among sub-species, assuming the offspring can reproduce. __________________________________________________
tamfang ::: Favorites  2007-11-18 23:03:44 Dog + wolf, yes. Housecat + small Old World wildcat, I haven't definitely heard of it but I'll believe it. The domestic species have known (or at least strongly suspected) wild ancestors. Those other crosses you mention, I strongly doubt. __________________________________________________
jonahansen ::: Favorites  2007-11-20 03:59:19 That was my understanding too. Wikipedia has some info on the definition of species, and essentially confirms what you say, given that this is not an asexually reproducing organism. __________________________________________________
DeimosSaturn ::: Favorites  2007-11-21 22:39:33 Wouldn't the frog have already been well adapted to its environment for thousands of years? I find this to be dubious. It looks more like a strange evolutionary adaptation that allows for hybridization to occur in harsher times, which would be a far more interesting discovery than a speciation event. __________________________________________________
DaNNYDarKSlidE ::: Favorites  2007-11-28 23:44:11 Que? __________________________________________________