Quote:
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Originally Posted by scastle
One final question on the topic of incest: Do Animals have sex with their mothers? If Nature doesn't allow something to happen, there is usually a good reason.
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As mentioned previously, *we* certainly make inbreeding happen in animals.
Some googling (with careful word choices of "natural history animal inbreeding" to avoid the more "lurid" sites!
) gives...
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Down to one last population, the remaining animals were reduced even further to perhaps a dozen or even fewer individuals.
By some amazing stroke of luck these hardy few survived and reproduced to reverse the tide of fortune. By now, though, the damage had been done. The last few of the species had very little genetic variety which has not increased much since their numbers recovered.
http://www.junglephotos.com/africa/a...tnathist.shtml
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Presently, koalas suffer from habitat depletion that is the result of human development. As their habitats shrink, problems with inbreeding and an increased spread of disease occurs.
http://www.seaworld.org/animalbytes/koalaab.html
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... amongst others, so it seems that inbreeding does definitely take place in the wild.