There is no shortage of words when it comes to the description of monotremes – taxonomic order consisting of only two animals, the platypus and the echidna. Bursting on the many strange ones the features of these creatures is too much in news coverage – and it’s almost impossible to avoid because there are mammals that lay eggs and sweat milk, among other things bizarre features.
But perhaps the easiest way to shape the success of the wonderful evolution of monotremes is to go straight into their DNA.. A team of 40 researchers from Australia, China, Japan, Denmark and the United States did just that in a recent review of the monotreme genome. Their findings are published in the journal Nature.
The first sketch and analysis of the platypus genome sequence came in 2008. Recent work includes aupdating the quality of that sequence and the first echidna genome (for some reason, echidna is always the second fiddler after the platypus). Interestingly, monotremes are halfway between oviparity and viviparity – referring to the place where embryos develop, in eggs or in the parent body. This characteristic is not reflected here or here in the protein dependencies of animals.
“During their short egg incubation, they kept one of the three major egg proteins that are used to make egg yolk in chickens,” said Marilyn Renfree, a University of Melbourne zoologist and co-author of the study, in a press release. , “But after hatching both the platypus and the echidna have a complex milk like other mammals to support their young during their long lactation.”
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Monotremes are a specific branch of the tree of life, in that they help to fill in the gaps in our understanding when animals with certain traits separate from each other.
“Indeed, tthe platypus belongs to the class Mammalia. But genetically, it is a mixture of mammals, birds and reptiles, “said Guojie Zhang, a biologist at the University of Copenhagen and co-author of the recent study, in a press release. “It has retained many of the original features of its ancestors – which probably contribute to its success in adapting to the environment in which they live.”
And animals need that extra boost. The Australian fires last year did platypus tracking efforts the more difficult as well as the more imperative. (A population was saved and sent back into the wild This summer.) Having the echidna genome sequenced will allow the genetic management of a similarly threatened species. After all, we can’t have our strange, illustrious creatures walking on the path of thylacine and dodo.