![]() However, in modern genetic science, a “chimeric organism” is hardly so terrifying. For many cultures, this animal was the symbol of evil, a crossbreed of darkness. In ancient Greek and Roman mythology, the chimera was a mix of different species it was a combination of a lion, goat, and serpent in one form. And It Gets More Complex: Meet the Chimeras They all blend and flow together and various junctures. As a result, it is difficult to separate species into nice, neat categories. ![]() And ultimately, this process has made each individual species what it is today. Indeed, it's a legacy that is carried in the bodies of all the organisms on Earth. So you see, the meeting and fusion of difference species is a legacy we carry in our very bodies. Cats are known to have acquired a baboon virogene somewhere on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea 5 to 10 million years ago." They seem to have been brought about by a virus attaching itself to the DNA of a host organism, reproducing with and accommodating to the host over the generations, and then shaking loose to infect another species while carrying some of the original host's genes with it. In extreme cases, really cool combinations are possible, as mentioned by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan: "Bizarre chimerical gene combinations happen more rarely - for example, between bacteria and fish (not only are there bacterial genes in fish today there are also fish genes in bacteria), or baboons and cats. Subsequent DNA will be produced with these same new instructions, and the DNA of the virus proliferates inside the host. When this subversion takes place, cell enzymes are given new instructions for replication of deoxyribonucleic acid (in other words, DNA). ![]() ![]() Some viruses can insinuate their nucleic acids onto the nucleic acids of another organism. ![]()
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