1st bioengineered hybrid animals discovered -- in ancient Mesopotamia

[Judi Lynn]

By Tom Metcalfe published about 6 hours ago

Skeletons of "kungas" discovered in a princely burial.

Mesopotamians were using hybrids of domesticated donkeys and wild asses to pull their war wagons 4,500 years ago — at least 500 years before horses were bred for the purpose, a new study reveals.

The analysis of ancient DNA from animal bones unearthed in northern Syria resolves a long-standing question of just what type of animals were the "kungas" described in ancient sources as pulling war wagons.

"From the skeletons, we knew they were equids [horse-like animals], but they did not fit the measurements of donkeys and they did not fit the measurements of Syrian wild asses," said study co-author Eva-Maria Geigl, a genomicist at the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris. "So they were somehow different, but it was not clear what the difference was."

The new study shows, however, that kungas were strong, fast and yet sterile hybrids of a female domestic donkey and a male Syrian wild ass, or hemione — an equid species native to the region.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/hybrid-kungas-discovered-mesopotamia

[eppur_se_muova]

1. So, basically a variety of mules ?

Mules were known in ancient Egypt at least 5000 ya.

https://www.mulemuseum.org/history-of-the-mule.html

[DavidDvorkin]

2. They messed with nature

And their civilizations disappeared.

QED!

[Igel]

3. QED?

Quantum electrodynamics?


(yeah, yeah, "quod erat demonstrandum".)