Spider-goats are a completely harmless breed of goat bred for the production of spider silk. Nexia, the company responsible for these goats, hopes to use these fascinating animals to create better, stronger materials for the future, helping humans and making them immense amounts of money. However, the advent of cross-species raises the question: When will we stop? Cross-species monstrosities could pose a serious threat to our existence, even our role as dominant species.

The need for spider-goats (allegedly) arises from the need for better, stronger materials. Spider silk has long been known to be stronger and lighter than steel, but farming spiders has proven to be impossible, since they tend to eat one another if they remain in other spiders’ company for too long. Even if they mate, they’ll eat each other afterwards. So instead of wasting time with spiders, researchers took the silk-producing gene and spliced it into goat DNA.

These new hybrid goats are exactly like normal goats, except that they are 1/70,000 spider. They produce 3 kilos of spider silk protein a year. Scientists in large white lab coats then take it and try to figure out how to spin it as well as a spider. So far they can only spin it about a tenth as well as a spider, but it’s a step in the right direction. In coming years you may be able to buy spider silk clothing, and spider silk body armor would no doubt replace other materials quickly.

That’s all well and good, but where will it end? Sooner or later, our inter-species concoctions will spin out of control. Won’t we find some use for scorpion-hippos or elephant-falcons? What happens when we create some species to rival our own, like a hyper intelligent platypus-meerkat with a leopard’s stare? Crossing species to get the best of their abilities may be useful, but sooner or later there’s going to be dangers. What if the new “master race” decides to start crossing animals with us? For all we know, our leaders and politicians are already crosses between humans and some more malevolent race, perhaps velociraptors or giant squid. No one is beyond suspicion when animal DNA is involved. Without extensive DNA testing we will never know whether or not that one overly strict teacher is really part praying mantis. Sure, they say genetic tampering promises better materials and manufacturing.  But some implications are much more sinister.