Can African elephants and Asian elephants cross?

African elephants and Asian elephants cannot cross because there is reproductive isolation between the two species.

African elephants are huge, reaching an astonishing 8 tons, while Asian elephants weigh about 5 tons. African elephants have 4 toes on their front feet and 3 toes on their back feet, while Asian elephants have 5 toes on their front feet and 4 toes on their back feet. African elephants have triangular ears, while Asian elephants have quadrilateral ears. The ivory of African elephants is longer than that of Asian elephants.

1978 In Chester Zoo, England, an African male elephant and an Asian female elephant gave birth to a baby elephant named "Morty". Morty gave birth prematurely and died of stomach trouble two weeks later.

Later, there were records of hybridization between African elephants and Asian elephants, but they all ended in failure. In fact, African elephants and Asian elephants have reproductive isolation and belong to two different genera. Moreover, African elephants have 2/kloc-0 ribs and 26 coccygeal vertebrae, while Asian elephants have 19 ribs and 33 coccygeal vertebrae.

Even the number of main bones is different, so it is difficult to cross successfully. Therefore, even if the tiger and the lion, the horse and the donkey can cross successfully, the African elephant and the Asian elephant can't cross any living individuals at all.

You know, the offspring produced by hybridization are new species. The formation of new species is related to the gene frequency of the population. When the frequencies of two genes in the same species are affected by natural selection, mutation and genetic drift, there will be differences in gene frequencies.

When the gene frequencies of two populations of the same species are different, they cannot naturally mate or produce fertile offspring after mating. In other words, evolution has produced gene frequency differences in different environments, and it is impossible to reproduce.