Breeding[]
I'm still wondering: Newt kept the last pair of breeding Graphorns. Wouldn't this mean that any of their descendedts would be closely related and not be able to produce further offspring? If I understand it correctly. So either Graphorns can get very old or there must have been other Graphorns unknown to Newt for the species to still be extant in 2020.--Rodolphus (talk) 22:59, January 2, 2017 (UTC)
- The term used by biologists is "Extinct in the wild". Such animals are normally bred selectively, in order to reduce homozygosity and remove poor genetic material. When the population reaches certain numbers, they are reintroduced to their habitats.
- It seems that Newt succeded in this, though the resulting bottleneck effect means that very likely there was much more genetic diversity among Graphorns before the 1920s than from then on (i.e. post-1920s Graphorns are all relatively similar individuals, while before there could have been Graphorns with many genetic variations). -- Seth Cooper owl post! 23:42, January 2, 2017 (UTC)