In the 20th century, scientists reportedly grew a hybrid species known as the ‘humanzee’ – but it was soon euthanized after concerns over ‘moral and ethical considerations’ arose.
In 1871, Charles Darwin hypothesized that humans had originated in Africa, based on similarities exhibited by African primates. Since then, researchers across history have been trying to turn this evolutionary argument on its head by creating a hybrid of a chimpanzee and a human – the aptly named ‘humanzee’.
Late Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov is known for his controversial attempts to create his human-ape hybrid in the 1920s. But he isn’t the only scientist who has tried to conjure up the beast.
According to renowned evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup, a ‘humanzee’ experiment took place at a lab where he used to work.
A so-called ‘humanzee’ was reportedly created in a lab (Getty stock image)
Gallup claimed this particular beast was created in Florida, with scientists panicking after the experiment was a success.
It wouldn’t be unreasonable to ask: ‘Why would anyone attempt such a thing?’ at this stage
However, scientists claim that it could have massive ramifications with regard to growing human organs for transplants inside monkeys in the future.
Not too long ago, a Spanish researcher claimed that he had successfully grown the world’s first human-monkey hybrid in a laboratory in China. According to Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, the hybrid embryo was viable and could have been born had the process not been aborted.
Of course, as we know by now, Gallup points out that the practice of splicing together humans with our primate relations isn’t exactly new, as the process was attempted during the 20th century.
Decades after the incident, he told The Sun: “One of the most interesting cases involved an attempt which was made back in the 1920s in what was the first primate research centre established in the US in Orange Park, Florida.
“They inseminated a female chimpanzee with human semen from an undisclosed donor and claimed not only that pregnancy occurred but the pregnancy went full term and resulted in a live birth.
The female primate was inseminated by scientists (Getty stock image)
“But in the matter of days, or a few weeks, they began to consider the moral and ethical considerations and the infant was euthanized.”
Researchers allegedly working on the task impregnated a monkey with human sperm and once the hybrid child was born, it was killed by the aforementioned scientists – who were terrified by what they’d done.
Gallup says that the professor who told him worked at the centre until it moved to another university in Atlanta, Georgia in 1930.
Gallup is known for developing the ‘self-recognition’ technique that proved that primates can identify themselves in the mirror and are therefore self-aware.
Whilst this sounds bananas, scientists are still using monkey embryos in labs to study how organs are grown in labs.
Some have even managed to grow old embryos outside of the womb for up to 25 days.