14 DAY TRIAL // The fern pictured next to this article might look like any other plant, but it really isn't. Researchers say that it is the love child of two distinct ferns that, about 60 million years after breaking up, rekindled their romance and got busy making babies.
Just to put things into perspective, specialist Kathleen Pryer with Duke University in the US explains that having two different plants once again interbreed after such a long time is kind of, sort of like witnessing an elephant and a manatee or a human and a lemur tying the knot.
The fern is one of nature's little miracles
Duke University biologist Kathleen Pryer and fellow researchers explain that the fern, discovered not too long ago in mountain forests in France, is the love child of an oak fern and a fragile fern.
Although they are related and share habitats in the northern hemisphere, oak ferns and fragile ferns stopped interbreeding and went their separate ways about 60 million years ago, the specialists further detail.
Given how much time has passed since they last had a love affair, these plants should not be able to interbreed. This is because the genetic particularities they acquired while evolving should make them incompatible.
“For most plant and animal species, reproductive incompatibility takes only a few million years at the most,” explains biologist Carl Rothfels with the University of California, Berkeley.
Presently, the biologists behind this research project cannot say for sure how and why oak ferns and fragile ferns ended up getting back together after 60 million years and even having babies together.
How the wonder fern was discovered
As detailed by researcher Kathleen Pryer and colleagues, the fern was found to be one of nature's little miracles when, after recovering a few specimens from the Pyrenees, scientists decided to have a closer look at its DNA in an attempt to establish its lineage.
Much to their surprise, the genetic analyses that the specimens were subjected to revealed that the plants owed their peculiar looks to the fact that they were the offspring of two distinct ferns whose love affair was presumed to have ended some 60 million years back.