In feudal society, the ancients were already aware of the dangers of inbreeding. However, in order to highlight the orthodox royal blood, those royal families still advocated ** marriage and gave birth to many genetically defective offspring.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, both social ethics and law emphasized the harmfulness of marriage, and everyone consciously abided by the laws and regulations prohibiting the marriage of close relatives within three generations.
Compared to the ethical principles of human society, animals have fewer scruples. Many people wonder if animals have no scruples when they are in heat. Is inbreeding a common phenomenon? When a man meets his mother, how does he choose?
In this regard, the old man said frankly: horses do not deceive their mothers! Animals are not as distant from each other as everyone thinks. What's going on?
01.Animals in heat have no scruples.
From biology books, everyone knows the dangers of inbreeding. Take pet cats, for example. As long as the cat is in heat, even if the other party is the mother, the cat will directly "cut off all relatives" and forcibly complete the mating to make the mother pregnant.
The same is true for domestic dogs. Dogs reach sexual maturity when they reach 7-8 months. Once in estrus, no matter who the other party is, they will vigorously "climb onto their backs" to complete the mating.
For domestic animals such as cats and dogs, it is difficult to find a partner of the opposite sex after estrus. They can only see their mother or siblings as opposite-sex couples. This is where inbreeding takes place. However, although the offspring inherited the beautiful appearance of their parents, they are frail and sickly, and it is difficult for them to reach adulthood without human intervention.
In nature, inbreeding is not uncommon. For example, a herd of bison lives on the Paracel Islands. They were brought to the island in the last years of the Ming Dynasty. Because the island is surrounded by the sea, bison cannot migrate, let alone come into contact with other herds.
Over time, bison can only choose to breed through inbreeding. But 400 years later, although the bison herd still exists, its offspring are weak and sickly, and there are no strong offspring, which shows the defect of inbreeding.
Inbreeding is mainly due to genetic similarity, which exposes recessive genes and greatly increases the risk of disease. From the perspective of genetic diversity, inbreeding reduces genetic diversity and makes it difficult to breed species that are more adaptable to the living environment.
Studies have found that after inbreeding pigs, their offspring are often weak and sickly, with poor disease resistance and high morbidity. They grow only half as fast as their non-inbred offspring and weigh only about 200 kg after 8 months.
In addition, the probability of lameness, deformity, hernia, etc. in piglets born of inbreeding is higher, and many pig farmers see that their pigs are defective, thinking that the pigs are simply sick, but they do not know that this is caused by inbreeding.
Could it be that animals have multiplied for tens of thousands of years and are not aware of the dangers of inbreeding? In fact, studies have found that inbreeding in the animal kingdom is mostly affected by human intervention, such as domestic cats, domestic dogs, domestic pigs, domestic pigeons, etc., and that breeders mostly inbreed pets for profit, thus creating expensive pets. For example, cats are a new breed formed by inbreeding.
However, scientists have found that wild animals in nature actively avoid inbreeding. They also have their own ethics and morals. They do not "cut off all relatives" during estrus. What the hell is going on?
02."Horses don't deceive their mothers" is real.
In human society, society makes people aware of the dangers of inbreeding through various educational campaigns. However, the animal kingdom does not have such a deep understanding. They found that the offspring produced by inbreeding was not conducive to the reproduction of the race, so they tried not to breed with inbreeding when mating, and chose to "backcross" only as a last resort.
Animals distinguish whether they are relatives or not, mainly by their sense of smell or hearing. Different animals have different smells and sounds. Animals have a keen sense of smell, so they can recognize relatives.
For example, researchers used to mix different groups of frogs to study their mating conditions. Studies have found that these frogs choose unrelated members of the opposite sex rather than their own siblings to mate.
Cliff swallows are birds that live on cliffs. They identify each other by their cries of voice whether they are relatives or not. When the mother swallow is looking for the little swallow, it will make a call first and wait for the baby swallow to respond.
In ancient China, there was an allusion to "horses do not deceive their mothers". According to legend, during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there was a White Horse Wall Village in Henan. The people in this village are all masters of horse breeding, and the horses raised are tall and strong.
One day, a horse breeder picked two high-quality white horses to mate. The stallion, who can be "unscrupulous", is indifferent and refuses to cooperate. The horse breeder had no choice but to investigate the cause and found that the stallion and the mare were in a mother-child relationship.
The breeder was not reconciled and blindfolded the stallion to allow it to complete the mating. But when it was over, the stallion found out that he was inbred with his mother. He yelled in anger and eventually crashed into the wall and died.
So, how do horses recognize their mothers? It turns out that when the child is still young, the mother horse licks and caresses the pony. Over time, the stallion remembers its mother's scent.
As they get older, stallions often leave the pack in search of new territories and mates. However, with human intervention, it is difficult for stallions to break out of the group, which can expose them to mating with mares. But when a stallion meets its mother, he will tell by his smell whether he is mating or not.
Of course, "horses don't cheat their mothers" is not absolute. Once the mare's scent changes, or the stallion has high levels of male hormones, it will still mate with its mother, but this is rare.
03.The mating logic of a lion and a tiger.
Lions are social animals that consist of males, females, and cubs. Lions usually have about 8-30 members. Lionesses will never leave the pride of lions unless necessary, so many people have questions. Will the cubs grow up with their mother or sister**?
In fact, when the male cubs grow up, they will be expelled from the lion pack by the lion king, and then they will wander around and challenge other lions to become the new lion king, thus gaining the qualification to mate. Once a lion loses a battle, it either wanders around or dies of serious injuries.
Because most male lions will be far from their original pride, and after leaving their mother, they will never see her again for the rest of their lives.
But nothing is absolute. If a male lion happens to meet his mother and becomes the new lion king, will he mate with his mother? In this case, the male lion can also identify the mother by smell and memory, and try to avoid mating with the mother. After all, there are many females among the lion clan.
Even if male lions are indeed inbred, most of the offspring born will be disabled, unable to stand at the top of the food chain, and will soon be eliminated.
It was also asked that if the male lion would leave the group, the female would not leave the group either. Will it inbreed with the lion's father?
In fact, male lions have a lifespan of around 15 years and the peak of their strength between 5 and 9 years old. Most lion kings can only be lion kings for 2 to 3 years, and then they will be defeated by young lion kings. It takes three years for a lioness to reach sexual maturity. At this point, the father has been driven away and mating becomes difficult.
Even when the lioness grows up and the lion father has not left, the lioness will postpone the mating period and wait for the arrival of the new lion king, so as to avoid inbreeding and ensure the reproduction and prosperity of the race.
It can be seen that it is difficult for lions to inbreed. So, will the tiger, like the cat, "cut off all relatives"?
Tigers are solitary animals. They live alone except during the mating period, so it is difficult to see their mothers. After the tigress gives birth to her children, she raises her cubs to grow up. When the pups reach adulthood, they leave the territory and avoid mating with their parents.
Of course, the territory of the male tiger and the territory of the female tiger overlap, so the male tiger will keep in touch with his daughter, but the male tiger will identify his child by his sense of smell and will not mate with his daughter even during estrus.
04.Animal mating is also ethical.
In the case of domestic animals, the range of movement is smaller, so inbreeding often occurs, especially the backcrossing of pet cats and dogs. However, wild animals generally do not inbreed if they are not affected by the environment, so we cannot say that they "do not recognize all relatives".
There are various mechanisms in the animal kingdom to avoid inbreeding. They are not without wisdom. In order for species to be able to reproduce from generation to generation, it is difficult for them to do unethical things.
In ancient times, many people believed that animals were intellectually inferior and that their mating was purely instinctive. But modern science has found that animals such as dolphins and chimpanzees have complex minds, languages, cultures, and even use tools, while it is even more difficult for chimpanzees to inbreed.
Therefore, animals are also ethical, and their life instincts are far beyond human imagination. It is precisely because of the prohibition of inbreeding that biodiversity exists in the natural world. What do you think?