Animal hybrids: monsters in the making

I know, I realize I shouldn't get into these things, these creepy things, these creepy things that make my flesh crawl, these creepy things that make my flesh crawl and also make me realize that humanity has no idea what it's doing.

What awfuls me out about this short video isn't the mammoth size of this freak animal, nor even the casual way they putter around him in total denial that he could kill them with one swipe of his gigantic paw. No doubt they think he's "sweet", no doubt they think he's "tame", no doubt they call him one of their "babies" (an ever-present symptom of the malignant disease of keeping exotic animals as pets).

I want to write more about this whole mess later, when I get a chance to see a documentary called The Elephant in the Living Room. I saw the last half of it on National Geographic Channel and spent the half-hour with my mouth open. 

The cases in this documentary weren't the worst, but they were bad enough. Keeping exotic animals as pets often goes completely unregulated, sometimes with disastrous results. It wasn't just the utter degradation of seeing glorious jungle animals kept in wire cages (with one male lion slowly, agonizingly electrocuted by faulty wiring on a freezer): it was the emotional abyss at the core of the people who were keeping these "babies". "He's like my son," claimed the lion's owner before the disaster,"one of my kids." Why is it I have this feeling his real children never tapped his heart in the same profound way?

All that unfathomable sickness aside, I soon got on to the topic of animal hybrids and was pretty astonished at what I found. Astonished, and freaked out. There has been an awful lot of tampering going on behind our backs: I didn't realize the well-known liger is three times the size of a normal lion, weighing close to a thousand pounds and resembling some prehistoric beast on an unimagineable scale. All this has been engineered, folks - we made it happen - and we made it happen without the slightest knowledge or concern that the resultant creature would be so grotesquely proportioned.

From the liger and the smaller tigon, often afflicted by dwarfism (not that such an insignificant thing will stop them from being bred), I fell into the dusky world of the wolf dog, which some people own for the same reason they'd get their bodies tattoed over every square inch: look, I'm a social rebel, I own a dog that's half-wolf! Look, I take a huge risk every time I take him out of the wire cage!

Does anyone stop to think what is going on in the mind and biology of an animal that has been created from spare parts, cobbled together in God-knows-what sort of way just on a human whim? Might there be some sort of internal conflict at the most fundamental level? Might that animal not know who he/she is? Or are those kinds of concerns not on the table, so long as we satisfy our "let's try this and see what happens" impulse?

Oh, but it got worse, a lot worse! Zebroids, including a zorse, a zonkey, and a zony. A cama, fusing together two species that are, well, close enough, aren't they? Except the llama genes seem to cancel out the camel's hump. But who needs a hump anyway?

When I came to the grolar or pizzly, I began to feel sick outright. But bears are bears, aren't they? Does it even matter if they're brown or white? Then why do I feel so nauseated? Never mind that these grotesque and ridiculous names insult their animal dignity and wouldn't even suit a toy. Hey, the leopon is just a spotty lion, right? And the wolphin. . . 

I stop at the wolphin. I stop at the wolphin because I know whales and dolphins are so intelligent, and I honestly wonder what sort of genetic clash might make these sea geniuses go completely mad. 


What set all this off - I mean, after the National Geographic documentary, which I have ordered on a DVD - was stumbling upon something that nearly made my hair stand on end: the humanzee. I didn't like to think that it was possible, that we've come that far, that we might just want to try this out for a lark or out of scientific curiosity: but haven't we been told over and over again how genetically close we are to chimps?  

This is a weird story that has been officially discounted, and now that I look at it a little more objectively I can see why. A couple claimed to have captured a baby chimp "in the wild" in 1960. Oliver had some pretty strange traits, the strangest being walking upright without the weird staggering gait of most chimps. He also had a strange-looking face, hairless and sort of flat, though hardly human. His ears creeped me out however, as they didn't look like chimp ears at all. They looked like human ears that had been grafted on.

Other chimps shunned Oliver, who seemed to prefer human company (and even mounted his owner's wife, causing them to eventually sell him). He smelled different, not like a normal chimp. These were all little question marks that added up to a very big one: did Oliver have human genes, and if so, how had this happened?

Back in 1960, the assumption was that some man had had sex with a female chimp "in the wild", the chimp had become pregnant, and little upright-walking, flat-faced Oliver was the result. He quickly became a sensation, dressed up in a tux and encouraged to smoke and drink for the crowd. This reflected the hilarity of the times upon witnessing animals "acting like humans". (Remember the Marquis Chimps on Ed Sullivan? I hope you don't.)

But a funny thing happened on the way to fame. People lost interest. The whole thing looked a little bogus. Oliver was sold again and again, each time falling a little deeper into the hole, and ending up in a small square wire cage in a laboratory.

Decades later, Oliver's original owner (perhaps wondering if there was more money to be made) tracked him down and eventually settled him into one of those chimp retirement homes. He didn't walk upright any more - too much trouble - and by this time he just looked like an old chimp, a very relieved old chimp, relieved he didn't have to wear a tux, smoke cigars and drink brandy for the crowd. He died only a couple of weeks ago, in fact, probably about 55 years old. Certainly he had served his time.

But it hangs in the air, doesn't it - weirdly, and sickeningly. Camas, pizzlys, zorses and wolphins. Whynot humanzees? At the end of his life Oliver was genetically tested, and it was officially announced that he was "100% chimpanzee", so that was that. (If he hadn't been, what would they have said? The genie would be out of the bottle for sure.)  


But I had a funny feeling about it all. I had a funny feeling about it all because that was over 50 years ago. I had a funny feeling about it all because that was over 50 years ago and, by God, now it is not only possible but bloody well likely we could do such a thing, "cross" a chimp with a human and come up with a whole new sort of species.

At the embryonic level, this has already been attempted and perhaps even accomplished. We want stem cells and new organs and all that sort of thing, necessary spare parts salvaged from throwaways, and we don't seem to care how much we ravage the natural balance in order to get them. 

But an actual humanzee, a hybrid? Is it illegal? Would it be funded? Who cares. Money comes. It follows curiosity. I am beginning to get this sick feeling, this prickly feeling that we're going to see this, and sooner than we think. The trouble is, no one will know what to do with this wretched thing, this product of strands of DNA twisted horribly wrong:  kill it now? Watch it suffer, or, perhaps worse, thrive? 

What will it look like? Can you see it in your mind? Will it maybe resemble its human parent: "Doesn't little Johnny look just like his Dad"? Will it walk upright like Oliver, or scooch around on its knuckles and swing from the trees?  Talk, perhaps? Have thoughts, opinions, needs? But who cares about needs at a time like this: who thinks of needs except OUR needs, our whims, our wretched inability to leave things alone and appreciate a fragile, unforgiveably damaged wild world that is committing suicide right in front of our eyes. 

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FOUND!: Cujo's rogue DNA

It was getting dark, and getting lonely sitting out on the rickety old back porch. Sam threw his live cigarette-butt on the grass, watching a small plume of smoke rise above it. Shit, he hated his life! Why didn’t he just admit it? He hated to be “one of those”, one of the people who’d given in, who’d let the whole world see that they had given up on the human species and had turned to something very different.

Something that had never quite been seen on this earth before.

Oh, but we’d seen them all right. From the dawn times, when humans were barely human, slouching and grunting and smelling as bad as Bigfoot, we’d recognized Wolf, yellow eyes flashing in the moonlight. We’d coaxed that wolf toward tameness with enticing scraps of food, and gradually Wolf learned to be a companion and guardian, a protector of human safety. So were things really any different now? Didn’t protecting one’s sanity from the horrific effects of social alienation count as guardianship?

And look at all the dog breeds that existed now. Hundreds, probably, and all the result of deliberate genetic tampering. So maybe this was just taking the next logical step.

Really, not so many people minded any more. Not like years ago, when it was an abomination even to think of mixing things up like that. Now that cloning your dead pet had become standard and even affordable, things like the “Up, Boy!” breeding program were slowly grinding their way into respectability.

It had become almost a status symbol to have someone like Flash. Well, almost, like tattoos and piercings and things. Though really, he shouldn’t have given him that silly dog name, what with his innate (or rather, engineered) superiority. This dog was no canine; anyone could see that. He was just a little bit More.

Flash trotted into the room, tail waving. An ordinary German Shepherd, except for the size.  Don’t look for long into those eyes, which were too blue even for a husky’s.

“Flash,” Sam cooed, scratching the ruff around his neck. Without even being asked, Flash lifted a front paw. But instead of “shake-a-paw”, he did something else.

He began to massage that tender place in Sam’s knee, the old football injury he used to call it, before everyone caught on to the fact that he got it falling down the stairs after a big pissup. These were no ordinary dog-paws: the toes were long and fingerlike, supple enough to know just where that tender spot was.

“Funny feet,” people said about Flash. They didn’t look too closely at his back paws, which were most un-doglike and even freaked Sam out sometimes. Their tracks made him think of a barefoot baby.

“Rururwwww,” he said.

“Yes, big buddy.”

“Irur wooo.”

“I know.”

“Ur are you?”

“I’m great, old pal.” Flash had cost him plenty: had to sell his bike and take out a second mortgage on this dump, but who cared when every female he had ever cared about had stomped all over him like he was nothing.

He saw one of those reality shows the other day called “But They’re my Babies!”, all about how a large segment of the population now cared more for their dogs than they did for humans, any humans, even their parents, spouses, children.

They’re my babies. Ar-rur-rur-rooo. How are you?

His cat wouldn’t go anywhere near Flash and hissed and arched and spiked alarmingly if he even saw him across the room. Flash would shake his head and say, “tsh-tsh-tsh”. Too bad. So far the scientists had left feline DNA alone, and perhaps that was wise.

This interspecies stuff – why was it considered so controversial? It didn’t cost that much, did it? Of course he’d only gone for the minimum, the ten per cent.

Ten per cent of human genes inserted into the DNA of a dog. A handsome dog. The human, well, not so handsome, it was really just Sam, but now he had a son just like he had always dreamed about. He even saw a bit of a family resemblance. Not just to him, but to his parents and his old Uncle Charley.

“Flash. Get me that – “

Flash ran over, his paws making that odd barefooted scurrying sound, and retrieved the remote, then, carefully setting it down, depressed the Guide button.

“You always know what I want, Flash.”

“Rur-roooow.”

He knew people knew, knew something was Different, that this dog carried himself differently, like it was striding along beside him, with a certain human kind of companionable gait. He knew its predatory side had been somewhat watered down – or not? Maybe just substituted with a different sort of predator.

People really were narrow-minded about “Up, Boy!” and the huge strides it had made in genetic research. The company advertised their services as a “step up” in pet ownership, an upgrading of a simple canine into something “so much more”. And if you had turned your back on your fellow humans, as so many people had done, the possibility was even more attractive, even essential to your emotional survival.  In fact, though it was strictly illegal, they were willing to go as high as 30 per cent if you were willing to fork over the quarter-million in cash.

Oh, all this had been illegal, illegal as hell for quite a long time. But just as the two-headed baby that would have been strangled fifty years ago eventually had its own reality show, the culture had learned to embrace the unusual. “Why do we do this?” the “Up, Boy!” brochure asked. “Would it surprise you so much if we said – because we can? Would it surprise you even more to learn that – you can, too?”

It was now possible to insert human genes into practically any species, any strand of DNA. One of the scientists joked that he wanted his son to look like a birch tree. Some of the early experiments were a bit creepy, of course, chimps being born with only ten per cent concert pianist DNA who could play Rachmaninoff with no lessons, or cows with hands, well, sort of hands, fingers anyway, but who the hell cares if a cow has hands or not? It just made for some great jokes about a self-milking cow. What difference does it make to the larger scheme of things, so long as human curiosity is satisfied?

But then there was the other side of it. Out of all this wonderful, groundbreaking research, a highly stigmatized group of “citizens” had arisen, so shady and secretive that many people said they didn’t exist at all, that they were merely an urban legend. These were the “down, boy” dogs: half human and half dog, or even mostly human, walking around with hocks facing backwards instead of knees, pads on their hands, forward-thrusting faces and gruff voices that elongated their speech into a series of groans.

Humans were mixing it up, all right. And why not? Hadn’t the color palette been predictably drab for long enough? The next experiment was inserting resurrected dinosaur DNA into frogs. Or was it humans? Imagine having that sort of Godzilla-like power! Talk about a roar! Or maybe you’d just end up with a certain reptilian ruthlessness, an absolute, utter, stone-hearted, glacial disregard for anything approaching decency or – Oh, it was Flash again!  It was amazing how he had learned to carry a plate without dropping anything or even salivating on the pastrami sandwich.

And how had he known he was hungry? And for what?

“Hello, boy.”

“Roarw are you?”

“Not so great, old pal.”

“Roarw you roanly?’

“Yeah. That’s the word, Flash.” He threw another live cigarette butt into the garbage can.

“Roanly.”

Human/ape hybrids: what they don't want you to know

Oh yes. Damn dirty apes. Why do humans have such a complicated relationship with them? We love them and fear them, for they represent our shadow side.

I just finished a post speculating on a theoretical and long-discussed human/chimp hybrid species called a "humanzee". The more I explored this topic, the queasier I got, because it just seems so bloody obvious to me that this is something that could be done: in which case, if it hasn't been done by now, it will be.

I watched a snippet on YouTube in which a primatologist insisted that there would never be a human/chimp hybrid, "not in the wild anyway", unless some "mad scientist" put one together, "and no one would ever fund such a project."

Indeed. My feeling is that she overestimates human morality and underestimates human greed.

I think that when faced with this ghastly possibility, denial is the usual response. Oh, surely not! It couldn't happen, could it? But with more and more disparate creatures being smashed together any-old-how, creatures with grotesque and demeaning names like liger and pizzly and wolphin, this potential horror becomes more possible and even more likely with every passing day. We seem to love to step into the God role and create brand new species, but as Mary Shelley tried to warn us, such hubris can be fatal.

It's a common belief that "we evolved from chimpanzees", and because I possess a little knowledge (which is always a dangerous thing) from taking anthropology courses, I know this isn't the case. Humans and chimps had a common ancestor in such remote antiquity that it's hard to pin down exactly where, when and what. (The name ramepithecus springs out at me for some reason, but as with so much in this field, new information is constantly cancelling the old).  At some point, a single species of primitive ape branched. Why it branched is anyone's guess. Why we continued to evolve into humans (though I sometimes believe we are devolving) is a mystery.

It's all a little grotesque. This ape-creature branches off, begins to walk upright (for bipedalism came long before the brain developed significantly), but remains incredibly primitive for uncounted millennia. The variations of proto-humans form a dense branching tangle which is hard to sort out, with numerous evolutionary dead ends. But accurate reconstruction of faces is now possible from the skulls anthropologists have collected in the field.

These are not just eerie: they should contain a warning. The following pictures may be disturbing to some viewers.

It's that squeamish combination of ape and human: and in this case, literally so. The australopithecines (given that strange and bulky name for reasons that confound me) roamed around and grunted and hunted and reproduced in so many different forms that it's hard to keep track of them all. Their big hairy faces and tiny skulls have disturbing human attributes, the mouth a little different (which made it possible for us to speak, along with a larynx set lower in the throat), and the eyes - well, I don't need to tell you about the eyes.

If we take a close look at these reconstructions, might we get a glimpse of what a humanzee might look like? This would resemble the "backbreeding" experiments the Nazis undertook during World War II, in which they tried to resurrect extinct species through selective breeding (with, as far as I know, no success. . .but hey, there's always room for another conspiracy theory).  If there were some way to fuse together and reunite the two species that split so long ago, might an australopithicine suddenly spring out at us again after thousands and thousands of years of extinction?

Well, what do you think? All I can tell you is. . .

If this guy knocks, don't answer the door. He's no Jehovah's Witness.

I think this is the origin of the term "lowbrow". Don't let him in either, not even to use the bathroom.

The gangsta humanzee (IQ about the same as a human one). Outfit by House of Capone.

The Indiana Jones of the hybrid set.

Wuzzup?

This fellow's a charmer. A sort of hybrid Maurice Chevalier.

Looks a little like E.T. But why so sad? In another 200,000 years or so, he'll be

destroying the planet.

All I can say about this one is: RUN!!!!!