Modern Mysteries

Did US lab create a 'humanzee' 100 years ago?

By T.K. Randall
January 31, 2018 ·  30 comments

Did scientists create a 'humanzee' back in the 1920s ? Image Credit: GFDL 1.2 Ikiwaner Evolutionary psychologist Gordon G. Gallup, Jr., who gained worldwide recognition for his pioneering mirror self-recognition experiments with animals in the 1970s, was told about the human-chimp hybrid experiment by a former university professor who claimed to have once worked at the same facility.

"One of the most interesting cases involved an attempt which was made back in the 1920s in what was the first primate research center established in the US in Orange Park, Florida," said Gallup.

"They inseminated a female chimpanzee with human semen from an undisclosed donor and claimed not only that pregnancy occurred but the pregnancy went full term and resulted in a live birth."

According to Gallup however, the scientists soon had a change of heart about what they were doing."In the matter of days, or a few weeks, they began to consider the moral and ethical considerations and the infant was euthanised," he said.

Russian biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov also conducted an experiment in the 1920s in an effort to create a human-chimp hybrid but ultimately failed to achieve a successful pregnancy.

A similarly unsuccessful experiment was also carried out in China in the 1960s.

Could scientists in the US have succeeded where everyone else had failed and if so, exactly what did they manage to create and did their research really end so soon ?

As things stand, no conclusive evidence of the US 'humanzee' experiment has ever been found.

Source: Science Alert | Comments (30)

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