DNA Testing Question

[Vulpes Velox]

Originally Posted by cirillonb

DNA testing for humans and animals is extremely expensive (in terms of thousands of dollars.) Remember just within the last 10 years has the human genome (a list of all the chromosome sites on the DNA strand) been defined at the cost of several Billion (that's with a B) dollars.
Furthermore, what Ray said is exactly true. Parentage is not easily determined this way.
Nick Cirillo

true, however.. this is because they are looking at the entire genome. that is not needed to just identify the species, you can just look at a specific sequence. it greatly reduces cost and can be done very fast. as people mention there is databases being build, but they are actually already very big, i wouldnt be suprised if they already contain loads of orchids.

(not saying everyone can just order something like that (labs that analyze these things normally work with big orders))

not sure if a hybrid might be difficult to identify, but if its in the database and you know what to look for i cant see why? (someone can probably correct me though ) but why would a hybrid be different to look at than an original species?