Scientific Adam and Eve

[Jenny A]

I also wonder if all animals can link their genes back to a single female and male...

I would assume so.  Ancestral collapse makes that highly probable.  You have four grand parents, eight great grand parents, sixteen great great grand parents and so on, yet the number on people on the planet is growing not shrinking.  So though your pool of ancestors appears to get larger the further back you go, it can't really because there were fewer people then. This means some of your great great maternal grandparents are likely to also be your paternal great great grandparents.  In other words some of the sixteen really hold more than one place in your family tree.  Reach your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents and there's going to be a lot of duplication.    Eventually there's likely to be someone who is the ancestor of every great grandparent you have.  This is just as true of animal populations.