The ability to analyze genomes has given us great insight into the evolution of many animal species, including us. But have you ever wondered how plants evolved?

Recently, scientists have discovered how one of our favorite food plants came to be. By using advanced genomic tools that are now available, researchers have deduced that random mating between wild tomato plants and potato-like species eight million to nine million years ago may have produced the potato.

Basically, the potatoes we know today (as well as 107 wild species) are in the lineage Petota. New research suggests that interbreeding between the ancestors of two other lineages, Tomato, which consists of 17 living species, and Etuberosum, with three living species in South America, is how the new lineage was produced. This conclusion required examining the genomes from 128 Petota, Tomato and Etuberosum plants. The resulting findings were published July 31, 2025 in the journal Cell.

The complete story is reported in “Tomatoes Randomly Mated with Another Plant 9 Million Years Ago. The Result? Potatoes.” by Sascha Pare on the LiveScience website (https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/evolution/tomatoes-randomly-mated-with-another-plant-9-million-years-ago-the-result-potatoes?).