At 02:33 PM 4/8/00 +0100, you wrote:
>Steven Horvath wrote:
>
>"I just thought that it was really neat to hear about the gerbil who was
>born with no tail..."
>
>What is there that could be "neat" about any animal born with deformities?
>If we ever had a Gerbil born in this fashion we would regard it as a tragedy
>and do everything we could to give this Gerbil a good quality life...
Well, it's neat in that we can learn a lot from mutations. For example,
studying the patterns of white spotting in an inbred line of mice can shed
light on the neurological development of the embryo, because melanocytes
and nerve cells come from the same set of cells.
Also, someone had to be attempting to fix the tailless trait in a number of
different species to learn that it was part of a group of phenotypic
problems in the development of the spine. Same with folded ears in cats,
and deafness in blue eyed white animals. If one is careful about where the
animals wind up, and is willing to take responsibility for whatever might
come of such crosses, a case can be made for exploring the effects of
different mutations.
That's actually the reason I've been looking for homes for many of my gerbs
(siamese & agouti): I am concentrating on schimmels and these dark spotted
doves. I am sure the mosaicism can be inherited (it is in dogs) - it's just
a matter of getting it in offspring, which may take awhile. Elizabeth's
recent post saying that my Dark Pied Dove has a DPD in his ancestry gives
me hope, though. =)
Rebecca...
