From kinky kangaroos to pensive pigs, we look at 8 experiments with animal sperm that will
shock you.
8.
Kangaroo sperm • In the 60s, scientists were obtaining
kangaroo sperm for by a method called ‘electroejaculation’ where they would send an electrical current
through the poor animal’s rectum to gain themselves some baby gravy.
• As if this wasn’t weird enough, the researchers found that getting the sperm from
anesthetized kangaroos didn’t give much love juice and the procedure on an awake kangaroo
might just traumatize them for life.
But dead ones gave lots more sperm than either of the other options so the researchers just
shot however many jars of jizz they needed.
• It wasn’t until ’97 that they could get huge loads of jizz from the kangaroos
without killing them.
What a brave new world we live in.
7.
Ocelot in the cat box • If you’ve never heard of an ocelot you’re
not alone; they’re like the wild bigger cousin of the house cat that is at risk of
becoming extinct.
• In an attempt to remedy this, scientists started trying to introduce ocelot DNA into
that of the common house cat.
In one experiment they blasted a male cat’s testicles with x-rays to kill off all of the
cat’s sperm, then they injected an ocelot’s sperm forming cells into the poor bugger’s
sack.
• After a few weeks the mutilated Tom cat was successfully producing ocelot sperm.
Poor guy, he’s never going to be tall enough to have sex with an ocelot.
Thanks a lot science!
6.
Genius Babe • In late 2015, scientists began inserting
human DNA into pig and sheep embryos in an attempt to harvest usable organs for human
transplant.
• The scientists would use human stem cells and inject them into the very young embryos
while they are in the womb.
But some groups are concerned that this blurs the line over what is human and what is animal
to a disturbing degree.
• They’re also concerned that the pigs may develop ‘altered’ intelligence levels;
which translates to super smart pigs that could take over the world!
And no wonder scientists are afraid of that, if pigs take over the world, where will we
get our bacon?!
5.
Frog or the Toad • Some of the randier frogs in the rainforest
have been observed trying to mate with toads during their mating season.
Whether that’s out of confusion or straight up not giving a flip is up for debate but
as far as scientists could tell, the two species couldn’t make a hybrid.
• But, being the Frankenstein creeps that scientists are, they decided to see what they
could do.
Ordinarily, Kermit’s baby batter doesn’t penetrate toad eggs but scientists found that
if they injected the DNA carrying portions of sperm directly into the egg it would start
to develop.
• From that point on though they haven’t had much success creating a hybrid of the
two species.
So I guess Kermit is isn’t getting any horny toads pregnant any time soon but pigs however…
4.
Gender bent hens • This one might just ruin your breakfast:
Scientists have discovered how to manipulate a female chicken’s biology so that they
produce sperm instead of eggs.
Yuck.
• With some chemical manipulation, scientists fiddle about with the hen’s sex hormones
and when she matures they have functional testicles that produce sperm.
The sperm they made is basically unrecognizable from rooster sperm.
• If they succeed they may never need roosters again, but try telling a lady she’ll never
need a cock again, I’m sure she’ll protest.
3.
Goat-Hamster • For reasons beyond my understanding, scientists
were fooling around in the lab one day and decided to try mixing goat jizz with hamster
eggs.
Not much happened, not even when they stripped away the egg’s outer layer.
• Then they thought, why not chuck the goat gravy into a pig’s uterus to see if that
made a difference.
So they took the love juice, put it into a dead pig’s removed uterus, left it for a
few hours and then voila!
The goat gravy was ready to accept the hamster’s
eggs as their home.
Nothing happened after that because even embryos aren’t dumb enough to think a goat-hamster
creature would work.
• I would love to be a fly on the wall for these scientist’s brainstorming meetings,
but I’m afraid they’d try to work me into one of their experiments.
2.
Scrapie • Scrapie is a pretty deadly disease that
affects sheep and goats.
It’s passed on from mother to newborn but scientists were trying to figure out if the
sheep were passing it on through sex.
• So they took the semen of some ram infected with scrapie and injected it directly into
the brains of mice.
Since scrapie affects the brain, they figured that if the semen had no affect through contact
with the brain, then surely sheep wouldn’t get infected when they came into contact with
it during sex.
• Luckily, those mice didn’t get scrapie but when the experiment was repeated with
a different strain of the disease, the researchers got different results.
So spread the word: Mice considering having sex with sheep should wear protection.
1.
Human- ape hybrids • In the 1920s, Russian geneticist Ilya
Ivanovich Ivanov tried to engineer a ‘humanzee,’ that is, a human-ape hybrid.
• Stalin hired Ivanov, ordering him to create a hybrid humanzee that wouldn’t care about
the quality of food it consumed.
Ivanov got to work but apparently he was more set on trying to prove creationism wrong than
creating the Soviet super army that Stalin in mind.
• But the task turned out to be harder than he thought: First he conducted a heap of experiments
trying to combine human sperm with ape eggs, which didn’t work.
Then he tried using ape sperm on a human subject, which thankfully failed.
After years of trying to play god, Stalin learned of Ivanov’s failure and he was removed
from his position and was arrested.
So thankfully Stalin didn’t get his super Soviet hybrid army but poor Ivanov was
exiled
for his troubles.