This extremely interesting article from the BBC reports on an apparently successful mating between a male donkey and a female mule.

The mule is a horse-donkey hybrid and was thought to be sterile because its uneven number of chromosomes prevents them splitting into pairs.

The horse has 64, and the donkey 62 chromosomes. Hybrid offspring have choromosome counts somewhere between those of its parents.

See two related articles on the BBC page, one on a mule-zebra (44 chromosomes) hybrid, the other on a sheep-goat mix.

If, as this article seems to show, inter-special breeding is indeed possible, then there is a very interesting new factor to be considered in any discussions about the theories of evolution and creation.

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