It will be possible, but will take a few generations to get a "pure" mammoth.

Breeding simular races is practiced since a long time, for example between donkeys and horses.


This is quite important. All the enivromental influences/illnesses that elephants have adapted to, are not in the mammoth's DNA. So I think the hybrid could be very vunerable to stuff like this.

That's not even close to the same thing. Donkeys are horses in every genetic sense and their offspring are always sterile when they actually manage to survive pregnancy. Were one to cross a 10,000 year-old extinct species of equus with a horse, I would expect little result.

My point, exactly. There's a good chance that the mother's immune system will generate antibodies, Killer-T's, and other protein-specific anitigens that will simply destroy the mammoth embryo, or eject it from the uterus. My knowledge of pregnancy dynamics is limited, however. I was hoping that we might have a natal physician in our midst who could explain how such a thing might work.

Nope, horse and donkey are regarded as different species. Horses have 64 chromosomes, donkeys 62. Mules and hinnies have 63. Seldom the mule offspring may also be fertile, this may just be the result of a genetic mutation, given the huge amount of mules.


Regarding that we have virtually every job represented here, I am sure we'll get some expert answers

Holy crap. I didn't recognize him. Damn, that makes me feel old (I have friends who did effects for JP).

Nothing new! :cool:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CAzj9bLIUy.../crocoduck.jpg
http://images.encyclopediadramatica....px-Eletang.jpg
http://images.encyclopediadramatica..../Hippocrab.jpg

Yeah, but of the 62 that donkeys possess, they are all almost exact matches to those of a horse. It's those last two that usually result in sterility or non-viable offspring because they have nothing to pair with. The 63rd chromosome in a mule is almost always non-functional; the result of an equine sex-chromosome bonding with with a non-sex chromosome from a donkey. It'll fit, but the code is garbage.

When it comes to a mammoth and an elephant, the code isn't close enough to fit, let alone develop a functional placenta.

I hope so. I've been puzzling over this all day and I just don't see any way this would work.