They were produced via an accident involving genetic engineering:
The researchers were trying to breed Russian sturgeon in captivity through a process called gynogenesis, a type of asexual reproduction. In gynogenesis, a sperm triggers an egg’s development but fails to fuse to the egg’s nucleus. That means its DNA is not part of the resulting offspring, which develop solely from maternal DNA. The researchers were using American paddlefish sperm for the process, but something unexpected happened. The sperm and egg fused, resulting in offspring with both sturgeon and paddlefish genes.
Stephanie Pappas, “Scientists accidentally create ‘impossible’ hybrid fish” at LiveScience
Paper. (open access)
That should cause the rest of us to think twice about freelance genetic engineering but, sticking to our topic here:
Hundreds of “sturdlefish” are swimming in the tank now. It is not known of those could have fertile offspring. Many other unusual hybrids, like ligers (lion + tiger) or zonkeys (zebra + donkey) or good old mules (horse + donkey) are sterile. The surprise in this case, though, is that the sturgeon and paddlefish are said to be separated by 184 million Darwin Years of evolution – much more distant than the other hybrids. They are also separated by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. What’s an evolutionist to do with this situation?
David F. Coppedge, “‘Impossible’ Hybrid Suggests Non-Darwinian Change” at Creation-Evolution Headlines
Coppedge reports on various attempts to make this situation coincide with Darwinian dogma, including one at Phys.org: “The researchers also believe the offspring, like most crossbred offspring, are infertile.” Crikey, they’d better hope so. For sure, don’t let them into local waterways. (Oh, wait, they’re planning to breed them in fish farms… )
We are also informed that both fish are “living fossils,” which is supposed to settle the matter.
Read more of Coppedge’s account of the amusing explanations here. Their main strength, as in the YouTube above, is that they uphold Darwinian thinking.
And that’s not the only weird news on tap either: Claim: Microbes that are— individually—100 million years old, come out of hibernation… ScienceDaily: Morono was initially taken aback by the results. “At first I was skeptical, but we found that up to 99.1% of the microbes in sediment deposited 101.5 million years ago were still alive and were ready to eat,” he said.
Also: Stasis: When life goes on but evolution does not happen