If my scheduling is going right then this should be February 3, 2010, which is unfortunate because this means I will be spending the entire day flying back to the Yukon. It is crazy how fast this vacation has gone. I know as I sit here writing this that I actually haven’t gone on vacation yet but I am pretty certain it will go by fast. I trust all of you have been enjoying reading about the unusual cross breeds. Today we are going to discuss an animal that was engineered in 1998.
As you may have guessed the Cama is a cross between a male Camel and a female Llama. A team of scientists cross bred these two animals with the hope of getting the best of both worlds. The result was an animal with short ears and a long tails which it got from the camel side. The llama side of the family contributed the cloven hooves. If you look at the picture you will notice that the cama does not have the famous hump. The birth of this cama was a pretty impressive feat since it was the first time the Old World’s Camels were successfully bred with a Western Hemisphere Llama since they split up more than 30 million years ago.
Believe it or not it took scientists two years to get the artificial insemination which they were hoping would create an animal with the soft llama fur. I know what you are thinking! Llamas have nice fur so why did they need to cross breed them? Just use the naturally occurring animals. Well this would work but humans tend to be greedy so they were hoping to create a larger animal with this prized fur. You see, that way they can make more profit by selling more of this fur.
I am starting to see that humans are making hybrids in order to create more wealth. Do you agree with people intervening with nature? Do we have the right to replace evolution? Let me know what you think!
Well that is it for me for today. I have a plane to go and catch!
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”* As an official “scary Christian chick”, I will say that animals should be left as God intended. It seems that there are often repercussions resulting from cross breeding species (e.g. reader’s comment on the Liger post) and sadly it isn’t the mad scientist who suffers for them, but the animal.
*borrowed from an old, OLD Kenny Rogers movie (’cause it fit 🙂
I couldn’t agree more with you, Jen!
Unfortunately, greed and money will always play a part in these things. The whole purpose of the Cama is to make people rich. I don’t agree with fooling around with nature just for money.
My curious, science side of me though does find it fascinating that they are able to create animals with certain qualities, however, that doesn’t make it right.
God: Look, if God let them able to breed, let them breed. God gave us the world to study and mess with. We are told to learn to try to understand everything around us. Besides, there are many other examples of other species breeding with another in nature, so why should this be different? Also, playing around with nature has helped save many lives. The polio virus, a nasty disease which killed millions, was exterminated by scientists. Even though the polio virus is “natural”, it doesn’t mean that it is good. Also, Nathan and Jen, many of the fruits and vegetables you buy at the store has been genetically modified to make it bigger and cheaper. These bigger, cheaper items help people to buy groceries they wouldn’t have had the money to buy in the first place. That’s helping poor people.
Greed: Why should greed be considered a bad thing? Why should it be bad to want to better your life and your family’s life? Communism is what happens when the government tries to curb peoples’ greed. And you know what? It doesn’t work. Capitalism is compatible with human greed, so we get new technology, inventions, and yes, scientific marvels, in order to live a better, healthier life, for people rich and poor.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if I see new, scientifically made species of plants in my life. I would love to see extinct plants come back to life thanks to science, and I would love to see new plant species, too. Animals are a little more difficult, but I would also love to see new animals, too. Why should we be afraid to make the world, and our lives, a little better?