REUTERS/Edison Vara
From the website
Cassia Aparecida de Souza, 18, said her cat Mimi had given birth to the three puppies as well as three kittens, which did not survive. And she, her husband Rogerio Jorge da Silva, 26, and several others in the town believe a neighborhood mutt named Dog is the father of Mimi’s pups.
Geneticist Adil Pacheco took blood samples on Friday from three puppies in a poor neighborhood in Passo Fundo in southern Brazil to settle a dispute over a claim they were born from a cat.
“It’s rather simple really. If the puppies prove to have 78 chromosomes, they are dogs. If they have 38, they are cats,†said Pacheco, director of the Institute of Biological Sciences of the University of Passo Fundo. “But I seriously doubt they are feline. Every characteristic about them is canine.â€
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Update: This cat-puppy mystery has been solved.
Either way, this is impossible, at best if something like that was possible, if canine sperm managed to fertilize a feline egg the end result would at best be a mutation which would result in a miscarriage shortly after the egg was fertilized. That's common knowledge, two species that far apart genetically cannot be crossed without some pretty intensive genetic splicing, which pretty much is only avaliable on simple organisms, such as plants.
This only shows how many people don't understand basic biology.
Scientifically speaking, unlikely hybrids may happen but only among closely related species. The case above really never heard before.
"Honest, Joseph! You're the only guy for me!"
And yes, seriously, this is a ridiculously frail offering. I even saw a news story about it on TV. It's just...not right. With Science.