The common ancestor from which all great apes - chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and humans - derived and evolved is so far away in evolutionary history that crossbreeding simply became impossible.
Logic and empiric evidence from other animals, today, suggests there was a period of time where these diverging species could still intermingle and crossbreed. At least in theory. It would be quite hard to take such events as granted and even more to prove it.
What can be asserted is that through a time scale that is incredibly hard to conceptualize for most - millions of years - from a common ancestor several new species evolved, adapting to their environment and changing in response to it, to the point the “cousins” can no longer recognize each other as such.
So humans and chimps are genetically further apart than horses and donkeys, wolves and dogs?
Yes.
The common ancestor from which all great apes - chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and humans - derived and evolved is so far away in evolutionary history that crossbreeding simply became impossible.
Logic and empiric evidence from other animals, today, suggests there was a period of time where these diverging species could still intermingle and crossbreed. At least in theory. It would be quite hard to take such events as granted and even more to prove it.
What can be asserted is that through a time scale that is incredibly hard to conceptualize for most - millions of years - from a common ancestor several new species evolved, adapting to their environment and changing in response to it, to the point the “cousins” can no longer recognize each other as such.
Yep. Dogs; are because of us ~40,000 years ago, technically a subspecies of wolf. I know horses started in North America, and donkeys in Africa…