Researchers Explain Why Interspecies Breeding Is Observed Among Animals

BEACON TRANSCRIPT – A team of researchers discovered an unusual behavior exhibited by monkeys and deer. The two species were spotted in Japan while engaging in interspecies breeding, which left the scientists puzzled. Such a behavior makes no sense from an evolutionary point of view, but it’s actually quite common among other species. Therefore, they decided to investigate and find out why this happens.

Interspecies breeding is actually quite common

Animals are driven towards mating by their biological need to perpetuate their species. However, they sometimes might exhibit a strange behavior, where they are willing to hump any animal or object even if it’s not a female of their species.

Interspecies breeding doesn’t produce offspring, so it’s opposed to the evolutionary instinct. Therefore, this behavior cannot be driven by the urge to keep the species going. Researchers investigated, and found a possible explanation, namely sexual frustration. Whenever an animal doesn’t have an available member of its species to discharge its sexual energy on, it would resort to anything that’s available nearby.

This behavior is a result of sexual frustration

This interspecies breeding is known as misdirected mating, and has been observed in many species so far. In several Antarctic species, like seals, the frustration arises from one single male which is dominant enough to mate with all the females. Most of the times, the remaining seals attack penguins and force them to mate with them. In other cases, none of the species minds it, such as the monkeys and deer recently observed.

Interspecies breeding can be beneficial for some species if they are genetically close. This behavior might result in new species, such as the combination between grizzly bears and polar bears, or between wolves and coyotes. Some of these species take the best genes from each parent, which makes it easier for them to survive.
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