Xref: utzoo talk.bizarre:11762 misc.legal:4675 talk.politics.misc:9451 misc.jobs.misc:1674 sci.bio:1143 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!xanth!kent From: kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: talk.bizarre,misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,misc.jobs.misc,sci.bio Subject: Re: Are Animals Patentable? Message-ID: <5090@xanth.cs.odu.edu> Date: 28 Apr 88 09:14:20 GMT References: <2924@saturn.ucsc.edu> <475@goofy.megatest.UUCP> <5018@xanth.cs.odu.edu> <2728@bsu-cs.UUCP> Reply-To: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va. Lines: 51 Keywords: Oops! In article <2728@bsu-cs.UUCP> neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP (Paul Neubauer) writes: >In article <5018@xanth.cs.odu.edu> kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >>In article <475@goofy.megatest.UUCP> djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones) writes: >>> >>>Recently a mule somewhere in the midwest -- sorry I can't remember >>>where -- foaled for the second time. Apparently it's not a hoax. >> >>Well, a hinny might have foaled, but a _mule_? That would really get some >>attention all right! > >Actually, the difference between a mule and a hinny has to do with the sexes >and species of its _parents_, not with its own sex. A mule (male or female) >has a mare (female horse) for a mother and a jack (male donkey) for a >father. A hinny (male or female) has a stallion for a father and a female >donkey for a mother. Sorry, Kent, it would actually be a lot more unusual >for a hinny to have foaled because there are a lot fewer hinnies (they are >smaller, so less econmically valuable). > >-- >Paul Neubauer neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP > !{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!neubauer I am so embarrassed! I should have kept up on my scorecard of who was doing what and to whom out there in the field; or, I could have picked up this convenient to hand copy of Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Second Edition: hinny: A hybred between a stallion and a she ass. Cf. MULE. mule: A hybred between the horse and the ass; esp., the offspring of a male ass and a mare. Cf. HINNEY. I feel about two inches tall, lifts included. Well, let me try to make amends by agreeing with the posting which I ridiculed in my ignorance. It would be a very valuable thing commercially if a non-sterile line of mules could be developed, because the mule is twice as fuel efficient as the horse, and more tolerant to heat and thirst, and, I think I remember too, stronger per body weight. The necessity of keeping breeding stocks of both donkeys and horses to provide for breeding to obtain mules, especially the female donkeys and the stallions, who must be fed although they make only an indirect contribution to the production of mules, is all that keeps the mule from being the dominant draft animal of temperate climates. The development of breeding mules would still to this day be a boon to many third world countries where mechanized agriculture is unaffordable. Gad! Kent, the man from xanth.