(Read related story: "Platypus Much Older Than Thought, Lived with Dinos".
Eggs and MilkĪquatic animals native to eastern Australia, platypuses have long perplexed biologists.Īlthough classified as mammals, they retain a number of primitive characteristics-including egg-laying-that are thought to have been passed down from mammal-like reptiles that lived over 300 million years ago.įebruary 6, 2009-National Geographic researchers are trying to collect DNA samples from these odd duck-billed mammals to determine whether there are separate subspecies.
"The platypus is critical to helping us understand what genes were present in the ancestral reptilian lineage and how mammals evolved their particular traits," Warren said. That early divergence means platypus genes carry information from a transitional point on the evolutionary time line leading from reptiles to mammals, said project leader Wesley Warren of Washington University in St. The group of animals called monotremes-which includes the platypus and the closely related echidna-is thought to have split from other mammals at least 166 million years ago. The analysis confirms that the platypus was the earliest offshoot of the mammalian family tree, Graves noted. "The platypus genome, like the animal itself, is an amazing amalgam of reptile-like and mammal-like features," said project co-leader Jennifer Graves, of the Australian National University in Canberra.
The study, appearing in today's edition of the journal Nature, gives scientists a new window into the genetic architecture of the earliest mammals. The duck-billed mammal has a genetic affinity with both reptiles and birds, according to a new study.ĭecoding the platypus genome has long been an important goal for biologists seeking to understand the origins of mammal evolution. The genome of the platypus-our most distant mammal relative-has been decoded and analyzed, researchers reported today.
0 kommentar(er)
