Tuesday, January 25, 2011
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A Blog designed for discussion of topics related to, but not limited to, Circus, Zoos, Animal Training, and Animal Welfare/Husbandry. Sometimes opening up the dialog is the best starting point of all. And if for nothing else when people who agree and don't agree, get together and start discussing it, it will open up a lot of peoples minds. Debate and discussion even amongst themselves opens a window where there wasn't one before.
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5 comments:
I think there might be some connection between Arthur C. Clarke's family and the Bristol Zoo. I'm not sure. Sincerely Paul PS Why don't you say something about the okapi's chromosomes?
Paul,
What about the okapi's chromosomes? The fact that they often have 45 or even 44 chromosomes instead of the normal 46. In other animal species less then 46 chromosomes is considered abnormal and often times fatal, but in the okapi it appears to have no affect and is normal.
I looked at a pair of them last week at a zoo in Texas, which were not displayed nicely. The female as in a large muddy paddock in the new African Area, and the male was in an older hoofstock paddock in the old area of the zoo.
They are an animal, I feel that would be displayed with justice by being in a blank bare green tile indoor stall, where they can really be looked at closely and their velvet like skin, and long incredible tongue observed, and then then they could be let out into a heavily planted out door exhibit to disappear. Like a tiger, their true beauty is looking right at them, but hardly being able to see them.
Wade
Okapis exhibit a type of monosomy called Robertsonian fusion, and there has been some speculation that this may be detrimental, resulting, in some instances of either spontaneous reabsorption of a fetus or embryo, or miscarriages. Sincerely Paul
Paul,
You have to speculate on whether Robertsonian fusion is a natural evolutionary process resulting in eventual extinction?
Wade
Wade, I guess the way it works there are no okapis with either 44 or 45 chromosomes. They all have 46 chromosomes, but some of them have one or two double fused chromosomes. (I'm guessing here.) They each inherit either 22 or 23 chromosomes from each parent. The 45s are like the heterozygotes. If you breed two 45s you would get 25% 44s, 25% 46s, and 50% 45s, like the parents. If you breed two 44s you would only get 44s. If you breed two 46s you would only get 46s. If you breed a 44 to a 46 you would get all 45s etc. Is it because of Robertsonian fusion that humans have fewer chromosomes than do chimpanzees, a fact out of which I think creationists have tried to make hay? You could also pure-breed okapis. If they selectively bred only 46s that's all they'd have in the end, if they determined that the fused double chromosomes are detrimental. Sincerely Paul PS I wonder waht William Shatner would have to say about this.
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