January
15
/ 2022
A super-powerful animal known as the ‘kunga’ was the first-known human-engineered hybrid of two animal species, reports a new study published in Science Advances . The researchers conducted a genome-sequencing study on equine skeletons found at a 4,500-year-old burial site at Umm el-Marra in northern Syria. The results of their study indicate the skeletons belonged to kungas, a cross between female donkeys and male Syrian wild asses or hemippes. The study was conducted by palaeogeneticists at the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris, France. “Kungas were F1 hybrids between female domestic donkeys and male hemippes [Syrian wild ass], thus documenting the earliest evidence of hybrid animal breeding. Large-sized male kungas were used to pull the vehicles of ‘nobility and gods’, and
