Humanzee

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Humanzee (also known as the Chuman or Manpanzee) is a hypothetical ape/human hybrid. Chimpanzees and humans are very closely related (the speculation is that they have 98%-99% of their DNA in common ^[1]), leading to contested speculation that a hybrid is possible, though no specimen has ever been confirmed.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Feasibility 3 Possible means of creation 4 Possible candidates for breeding with humans 5 The Ivanov experiments 6 Rumored humanzees 6.1 Oliver 7 Genetic evidence 8 Popular culture 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

[edit] Etymology

In spite of the usual convention of portmanteau words to describe hybrids, there is no consensus as to which word to use, "chuman" or "humanzee" in popular speech. Etymologists from the Slater/Ralley/Stear school of thought, unable to decide for the better, have distinguished the two neologisms by connotation.^{[citation needed]} "Chuman" alludes to the more sinister hybrid, fusing the intelligence of a human with the relative upper-body strength of a chimpanzee, bred for megalomanic and military ends. "Humanzee", however, evokes a more placid and militarily impotent animal; combining the weakness of a human with the relative stupidity of a chimpanzee. Geneticists adhere to the portmanteau word convention to indicate which species is the sire.^{[citation needed]} (cf. tigon/liger) This is important because of the phenomenon of genomic imprinting where genes are expressed differently depending on which parent contributed them. Hybrids are named according to the convention first part of sire's name + second part of dam's name (except where the result is unwieldy). For geneticists, "Chuman" therefore refers to a hybrid of male chimpanzee and female human, while "Humanzee" or "manpanzee" refers to a hybrid of male human and female chimpanzee.

[edit] Feasibility

Humans and chimpanzees have different number of chromosomes, but this does not necessarily mean a humanzee would be infertile.^{[citation needed]} Two chromosomes in the ape genome have fused in the human genome, but such mismatches are relatively common in existing species, a phenomenon known as chromosomal polymorphism.

Many believe that if a chuman/humanzee existed and could bear its own young, then humans and chimpanzees would be the same species a priori. This is based on a commonly used definition of species that considers specifically the possibility of genetic transfer between populations. Other definitions of species do not make this conclusion; for example, a female liger – the hybrid offspring of a lion and a tiger – may be fertile, but lions and tigers are considered separate species.

In the 1920s the Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov carried out a series of experiments to create a human/ape hybrid. At first working with human sperm and chimpanzee females, none of his attempts created a pregnancy. In 1929 he organized a set of experiments involving ape sperm and human volunteers, but was delayed by the death of his last orangutan. The next year he fell under political criticism from the Soviet government and was sentenced to exile in the Kazakh SSR during the Great Purge; he died two years later (see below).

Author Kelpie Wilson, who made the heroine of her novel Primal Tears a humanzee named Sage, mentioned that "She is only a thought-experiment of mine, though I have to confess, there was one point where I was so obsessed with the idea and so curious to find out if a bonobo-human hybrid was possible, that I contemplated getting ahold of some bonobo sperm and trying it myself! Luckily, my common sense prevailed, and Sage was born on paper only."[1]

As far back as 1977, researcher J. Michael Bedford [2] discovered that human sperm could penetrate the protective outer membranes of a gibbon egg. Among the apes, the gibbon is the farthest from humans. Bedford's paper also stated that human spermatozoa would not even attach to the zona surface of sub-hominoid primate (baboon, rhesus monkey, squirrel monkey), concluding that although the specificity of human spermatozoa is not confined to man alone, it probably is restricted to the Hominoidea.

One possible way that ape sperm could be used to fertilise human eggs would be with simple sperm washing techiques to remove white blood cells and other matter from the semen. Then mix in isotonic saline (buffered to neutral ph), centrifuge, remove the pellet of sperm at the bottom, and use with either in vitro (IVF), or intra-uterine insemination (IUI) procedure. Or add in dextrose, glycerine, propylene glycol, and saline and cryo-freeze for later. ^{[citation needed]}

In 2006, research showed that after the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees diverged into two distinct lineages, inter-lineage sex was still sufficiently common that it produced fertile hybrids for around 1.2 million years after the initial split.^[2]

However, despite speculation, no case of a human-chimpanzee cross has ever been confirmed to exist in modern times. This doesn't make it entirely impossible; Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells. Chimpanzees are much more like humans than rabbits. Still, the creation of humanzees might run into difficulties other than purely scientific ones. For example, in 2004, Canada passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which bans chimeras. Specifically, it prohibits transferring a nonhuman cell into a human embryo and putting human cells into a nonhuman embryo. Should similar laws be passed in other countries, the chances of a humanzee coming to life would diminish regardless of technological and medical advancements.

[edit] Possible means of creation

Several ways have been suggested to create a humanzee. Among them, the most common are:

• Impregnating a human female with chimpanzee sperm.
• Impregnating a chimpanzee female with human sperm.
• Fusing human and chimpanzee DNA together (see Chimera)
• Gene therapy on an existing human or ape.
• Forced evolution of the ape by carefully re-structuring the embryo's chromosomes to more closely resemble human chromosomes. This is usually mentioned as possible with the use of nanotechnology to splice chromosome segments. Cutting the chromosome at the exact spot necessary is fairly simple in principle: one merely tailors the appropriate endonuclease for the point at which the cut is to be made. But the problem that can’t be overcome is that only one of the two chromosome fragments would have a centromere. This is where the spindle fibers attach during cell reproduction, and without a centromere for every chromosome, the reproductive process would fail. The cell would die.

If there is no visible financial or scientific gain from creating a humanzee, it is unlikely that research in that direction would find funding. Chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans require costly facilities with a trained staff.

[edit] Possible candidates for breeding with humans

Among the great apes, the bonobo (Pan paniscus) has the closest DNA to that of a human.^[3]) Plus, it is characteristically more docile than the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes. This would make it a more natural choice. The common chimpanzee is known for its vicious territoriality, hunting of other animals (such as the baboon) and even murdering groups that among their own kind eliminate the weak and the foreign ^[4]. Should this temperament be passed on to the humanzee, military uses could be accomplished, but the results would be hard to control.

The gorilla is known to be very docile and extremely strong. ^[5]. ^[6]. This ape would be a good choice for producing humanzee labourers. In the novel The Gor Saga, author Maureen Duffy built upon this theory creating a humanzee character that was exceptionally strong and athletic, yet could not bring himself to harm other living beings, thus becoming useless for military purposes. ^[7]

Although orangutans are generally passive, aggression toward other orangutans is very common; they are solitary animals and can be fiercely territorial. Immature males will try to mate with any female, and may succeed in forcibly copulating with her if she is also immature and not strong enough to fend him off. ^[8] A humanzee bred from orangutans who retained these characteristics might not be cooperative for labour purposes, and a problem around human females.

Of course the effect of the human side cannot be properly gauged until an actual humanzee is produced. The entire purpose of a humanzee is to combine human and ape characteristics. Higher intelligence might buffer the ape temperament, but it won't change the nature of the humanzee, whichever it turns out to be.

[edit] The Ivanov experiments

The most controversial of Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov's studies was his attempt to create a human-ape hybrid. As early as 1910 he had given a presentation to the World Congress of Zoologists in Graz in which he described the possibility of obtaining such a hybrid through artificial insemination.

In 1924, while working at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, Ivanov obtained permission from the Institute's directors to use its experimental primate station in Kindia, French Guinea, for such an experiment. Ivanov attempted to gain backing for his project from the Soviet government. He dispatched letters to the People's Commissar on Education and Science Anatoliy Vasilievich Lunacharsky and to other officials. Ivanov's proposal finally sparked the interest of Nikolai Petrovich Gorbunov, the head of the Department of Scientific Institutions. In September 1925 Gorbunov helped allocate US$10000 to the Academy of Sciences for Ivanov's human-ape hybridization experiments in Africa.

In March 1926 Ivanov arrived at the Kindia facility, but stayed only a month without success. The Kindia site, it turned out, had no sexually mature chimpanzees. He returned to France where he arranged through correspondence with French Guinea's colonial governor to set up experiments at the botanical gardens in Conakry.

Ivanov reached Conakry in November 1926 accompanied by his son, also named Ilya, who would assist him in his experiments. Ivanov supervised the capture of adult chimpanzees in the interior of the colony, which were brought to Conakry and kept in cages in the botanical gardens. On February 28, 1927, Ivanov artificially inseminated two female chimpanzees with human sperm (not his own or his son's). On June 25, he injected a third chimpanzee with human sperm. The Ivanovs left Africa in July with thirteen chimps, including the three used in his experiments. They already knew before leaving that the first two chimpanzees had failed to become pregnant. The third died in France, and was also found not to have been pregnant. The remaining chimps were sent to a new primate station at Sukhumi.

Although Ivanov attempted to organize the insemination of human females with chimpanzee sperm in Guinea, these plans met with resistance from the French colonial government and there is no evidence such an experiment was arranged there.

Upon his return to the Soviet Union in 1927, Ivanov began an effort to organize hybridization experiments at Sukhumi using ape sperm and human females. Eventually in 1929, through the help of Gorbunov, he obtained the support of the Society of Materialist Biologists, a group associated with the Communist Academy. In the spring of 1929 the Society set up a commission to plan Ivanov's experiments at Sukhumi. They decided that at least five volunteer women would be needed for the project. However, in June 1929, before any inseminations had taken place, Ivanov learned that the only postpubescent male ape remaining at Sukhumi (an orangutan) had died. A new set of chimps would not arrive at Sukhumi until the summer of 1930.

[edit] Rumored humanzees

There have been occasional reports and rumors of humanzees throughout history. St. Peter Damian, in his 11th century De bono religiosi status et variorum animatium tropologia, tells of a Count Gulielmus whose pet ape became his wife's lover. One day the ape became "mad with jealousy" on seeing the count lying with his wife and it fatally attacked him. Damian claims he was told about this incident by Pope Alexander II and shown a creature named "Maimo", which was supposed to be the offspring of the countess and the ape. It has been mentioned that Maimo was most likely a retarded human child.

During World War II, famous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele would sometimes torment uncooperative female Jewish prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp by showing them photos of chimpanzees and telling them he had impregnated them with the sperm from those chimps. This was only a form of psychological torture and he never actually conducted experiments of the sort, as they served no purpose in his eugenics research. ^[9]

[edit] Oliver

There have been no scientifically verified specimens of a human/ape hybrid, although a performing chimp named Oliver was popularized during the 1970s as a possible Chuman/Humanzee. Genetic tests conducted at the University of Chicago concluded that, despite Oliver's somewhat unusual appearance and behavior, he was a normal chimpanzee,^[10] he had the same number of chromosomes as normal chimpanzees, but had a slightly different gene code. The "hybrid" claims were possibly a promotional gimmick. As a result of being humanized (habituated to humans rather than to chimps), Oliver was said to be attracted to female humans, and did not mate with chimpanzees.

An episode of Unsolved History broadcast on the Discovery Channel on March 27, 1998 that discussed the controversies over Oliver the chimp also detailed some of the rumors and urban legends about "humanzees"; one claim was that a common chimpanzee was impregnated by human sperm in a laboratory in China, but was killed by a mob before giving birth. A similar story, reported by University at Albany psychologist Gordon Gallup, alleged that a human-chimp hybrid was successfully engendered and born at the old Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Orange Park, Florida in the 1920s, but was destroyed by the scientists soon after. Gallup claimed he heard the story as a young research student, when an elderly academic confided in him that he had been part of the team behind the experiment.

[edit] Genetic evidence

Looking back millions of years into early human history, current research into human evolution tends to confirm that in some cases, interspecies sexual activity may have been a key part of human evolution. Analysis of human and animal genes in 2006 provides strong evidence that after humans had clearly diverged from apes, interspecies mating none the less occurred regularly enough to change certain genes in the new gene pool:

"A new comparison of the human and chimp genomes suggests that after the two lineages separated, they may have begun interbreeding. [...] A principal finding is that the X chromosomes of humans and chimps appear to have diverged about 1.2 million years more recently than the other chromosomes."

The research suggests that:

"There were in fact two splits between the human and chimp lineages, with the first being followed by interbreeding between the two populations and then a second split. The suggestion of a hybridization has startled paleoanthropologists, who nonetheless are "treating the new genetic data seriously."

[edit] Popular culture

Ape-like beings that have distinctly human traits are not uncommon in fiction, most notably in the Planet of the Apes series, but examples of actual human-ape hybrids in films are not as common.

• First Born is a British TV mini-series about the creation of a man-gorilla hybrid based on novel The Gor Saga by Maureen Duffy.
• The British teleseries Quatermass and the Pit (and its subsequent theatrical version) featured insect-like martians who, 5 million years before, created homo erectus by genetically altering chimpanzees.
• The 1952 movie Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla has the mad scientist Dr. Zabor trying to develop a human-ape hybrid. This film made number 24 on the DVD documentary The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made's list.
• The 1999 Outer Limits episode "Descent" featured Leland Orser as a shy, nerdy scientist who attempts to become stronger and more confident by injecting himself with DNA extracted from primitive primates. The experiment unexpectedly begins slowly transforming him into a human-ape hybrid.
• Primal Tears is a novel by Truthout’s environment editor Kelpie Wilson about the adventures of a bonobo-human hybrid female named Sage who goes from hunted pariah to international superstar.
• H. P. Lovecraft's short story Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family concerns a family with simian heritage, and references a society of man/ape hybrids.
• Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote two of his Tarzan novels referencing the people of the lost city of Opar, whose inhabitants were descendents of humans and apes. This may have influenced the above mentioned H.P. Lovecraft story.
• Sims by F. Paul Wilson is a novel that explores a near-future event where Humanzees are created as a de facto slave race. Humanzees in this novel are created by the human race as slaves. ^[11]

[edit] See also

• Great Ape Project
• Personhood (and more specifically, Great Ape personhood)
• Human evolution
• Hybrid
• Historical and cultural perspectives on zoophilia

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Two Splits Between Human and Chimp Lines Suggested (May 2006). (registration required)
• Atlantic article (subscription required)
• Is Oliver a 'Humanzee'?
• Prometheus Society article claiming that naturally occurring humanzees are impossible
• Stalin's hybrid plans
• Article on Human-Chimp Link