Mating toads leap the species barrier

[blinkvirus]

the guy says mixed breed= less fit? Well mixed breed is like mixed race with humans, and mixed race humans are actually healthier and fitter.

[ThatAnimalGuy]

@blinkvirus actually no, all humans are the same species (Homo sapiens) with different races, which in animals are called subspecies. The two toads mentioned are two different species, and hybrids of two different species rarely survive in the wild due to the mixed genes, which can cause several problems. However their are exceptions, such as the toads in the video, some species of salamanders, and Bird Voiced treefrog X Cope's Gray treefrog hybrids.

[biggpapa226]

Even domesticated dogs can still mate with wild dogs. As varied as domesticated breeds are, they are still essentially the same species. We say that these two frogs are different species mating, perhaps they have simply been misclassified and are actually the same species. They may differ sufficiently to appear as different species, but they are surly close enough genetically to mate and produce successful offspring.

[YouTub3Troll]

holly shit

[WatcherAZ]

Frog Sex... that's about as good as it gets on YouTube.

[WindIove]

LOL

[TheMathGuy]

If these frogs are truly different species, then doesn't that mean their offspring will be sterile? How could this be an evolutionary advantage? If their offspring are not sterile, then shouldn't they be classified as two sub-species of the same species?

[javierenchina]

I agree, I thought the definitation of "species" is a group of organisms that can interbreed and produce viable offspring

[stitchrocks1994]

who gives a crap about this stuff?!

[jerms88]

well, you must a little if you watched the video...

[xbrndnx]

Lol well why did you click on it? It has nothing to do with britney spears vagina? Fucktard!

[SAsgarters]

People who are educated enough to understand the significance of this discovery.

[genclik3030]

iii

[AnyKey88]

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.

[jonahansen]

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]

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]

Que?

[sent2null]

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.

[Jmcenanly]

How are the frogs supposed to know one species from another?

[CreativeCritisizm]

Are these hybrids able to reproduce with anything else & thus, dilute the species entirely ?

[OriginalSmohrman]

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]

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]

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.

[tamfang]

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.

[ComradePorkie]

Are dogs and wolves also not technically the same species? I thought they could interbreed sucessfully too without producing infertile hybrids.

Still don't get how frogs from different species can breed sucessfully for many generations, wouldn't that make them the same species in the first place!?

[Avalikia]

Well, that all depends on how you define "species". In your high school biology class you learn that two animals are the same species if they can produce fertile offspring. But the reality is that there are many cases where that rule does not work...

[Avalikia]

Take lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars. All of them normally recognise eachother as a different species, but if you raise them together any two of these will breed and produce offspring. All the male offspring from these pairs are infertile, but the females are all fertile. If you don't believe me, look up "Congolese Spotted Lion" in wikipedia. Does that make lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars the same species?

[flydarling]

Fascinating. Cheers, Lesley

[NShimaru]

The moral of this story is a weird one.

go frog on frog "technical bestiality" I guess?