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Originally Posted by Fordim
That's a good point -- for Elves and humans to reproduce successfully, they would have to be the same species!
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They might be, for all we know. But I believe they can still reproduce successfully if they are not of the same species. Look at the horse and the donkey. Or the members of the feline family.
Here's what my limited knowledge of Genetics led me to infer:
*Let EE=pointed ears, ee=rounded ears
Pointed ears could be a dominant trait (EE) exclusive to Elves, and Men possess the recessive gene (ee) to rounded ears. If two Elves procreate, their offspring would still have pointed ears (EE), no matter what (unless some freak-of-nature mutation occurs). A man and a woman would have a child with rounded ears (ee). But if a Man (EE) and an Elf (ee) reproduce, the resulting child would have the
Ee genotype for ear shape. Due to the presence of a dominant allele E, the resulting phenotype would still be pointed - hence the Halfelves' pointed ears.
But if this is so, Elros should have had pointed ears (Ee). And since he married a human (ee), the Numenoreans should have had a variety of ear shapes (Ee and ee)! Maybe his choice of mortality came with free genetically-modified (rounded) ears, which he passed on to the Numenoreans. Aragorn has rounded ears, right?
This is much too confusing.