Name: Why Are Mules Sterile?
Uploaded: 2021-06-29T01:24:58.000Z
Duration: 4 min 23 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Horse plus donkey: it seems like an unlikely combination.

There's the height difference, for a start.

But there's also the problem of donkeys and horses

And yet, this strange combination can result in even stranger offspring:

The mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey,

but mule parents don't go on and have mule offspring.

With only a few exceptions, mules can't even become parents at all.

Because mules are exclusively the offspring

When a male horse and a female donkey get together,

you end up with the lesser-known sibling, the hinny.

Either way, you get a hybrid that has donkey-like ears

But it's not the hybrid appearance that stops mules (or hinnies)

from breeding with each other or even with donkeys and horses.

Different species have a different number of chromosomes

or structures within cells that contain our DNA.

the offspring gets those chromosomes in pairs, one from each parent.

Two members of the same species will have the same number of chromosomes,

so the offspring gets exactly half of their chromosomes from each parent.

Horses have 64 chromosomes, while donkeys have 62 chromosomes.

In the mule's case, that's 32 pairs of chromosomes from the horse

So, mules have one chromosome that is left sort of hanging out in limbo

But this limbo chromosome can be a major hurdle

that stands between mules and parenthood.

sperm and egg cells during a process called meiosis.

Where cells divide to produce sex cells that

contain only half of the parent cell's genetic information.

and exchange genetic information, so there's a different mix

of genes from each parent in the resulting gametes.

In mules, meiosis doesn't happen, partly because

the horse and donkey parents' chromosomes aren't homologous.

Homologous chromosomes are a matched pair of chromosomes,

similar in size and structure and carrying different versions of the same genes.

Non-homologous chromosomes, like those of horses and donkeys,

are too different in size and structure, so they can't be easily paired up.

So the odd chromosome from the mule remains unmatched.

All this means that mule chromosomes just have a hard time pairing up,

disrupting meiosis so no eggs or sperm are created,

meaning no mule offspring for mule parents.

But it wouldn't be fair to end this story

without confirming that there are very rare

documented cases of female mules giving birth to viable offspring.

a lot of unlikely things have to come together.

The mule has to sort of accidentally produce an egg that

Then, that egg has to be compatible with the sperm cell

Both variables are so unlikely that there have been only

a handful of recorded cases of mules giving birth.

Even then, it's actually more likely that this mule parent was just a

donkeyish-looking horse or a horsish-looking donkey,

which is something that scientists try to rule out

whenever they're studying those rare reports of mule offspring.

So although mules continue to be a preferred animal for things like

packing and trekking into the Grand Canyon,

there's no danger of them taking over the wild west

Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow!

If you liked learning about mules but would like to know

more about how a world run by animal hybrids would look,

I bet you'll love our podcast, SciShow Tangents!

In it, some of the fun people involved in SciShow

get together for a lightly competitive knowledge showcase.

Every episode, they rack up points for teaching the others,

the most mind-blowing science facts related to the week's theme.

If you love science, laughing, and lighthearted, nerdy competitions,

You can find SciShow Tangents anywhere you get your podcasts.

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Why Are Mules Sterile?

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