> From: Jon & Stacy Boone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 19:10:50 -0500
>
> Actually I think that Erin Shroeder in Germany has now bred the species to
> about the 30th generation without any ill-effects whatsoever. Geckoes by
> Henkel and Schmidt was originally written and published in Germany in 1991.
> Shroeder has been around a long time and keeping pictus the whole way.
It's not uncommon in nature for animals to live in arrangements such that
most of the conspecifics they meet are close relatives. In cases like this,
any "bad" genes are quickly removed from the gene pool, and further inbreeding
is harmless.
An extreme example are island endemic species, in which the entire population
for the history of the species may never have been more than a few dozen
individuals. This can be a very stable situation, even though all mating is
inbreeding. Another is herd mammals, like horses. In a wild horse species
herd, most females are aunts, half-sisters or daughters of the herd sire.
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