Waddling, wriggling, ambling, digging, egg laying. There is no shortage of verbiage in terms of describing monotremata – an taxonomic order made up of only two animals, the platypus and the echidna. Rattling off the many weird there are traces of these creatures trope in news coverage – and it’s almost impossible to avoid, as they are mammals that lay eggs and sweat milk, among others strange features.
But perhaps the easiest way to explain the monotremes ’remarkable evolutionary success is to get right into their DNA.. A team of 40 researchers from Australia, China, Japan, Denmark and the United States did just that in a recent study of the genomes of monotremes. They have their conclusions published in the journal Nature.
The first version and analysis of the platypus genome sequence occurred back in 2008. The recent paper includes a high-quality update of that sequence and the echidna genome ever (for some reason, the echidna always the second fiddle to the platypus). Interestingly, monotremes lie halfway between oviparity and viviparity – referring to where embryos are developed, in eggs or in the parent group. This or this instability is manifested in the protein dependence of the animals.
“While short of egg-laying, they retained one of the top three egg proteins used to make the yolk in chickens,” said Marilyn Renfree, an ophthalmologist at the University of Melbourne and co-author the study, in its press release, “but after birth both platypus and echidna have complex milk like other mammals to support the young during long lactation. ”
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The monotremes are a special branch of the tree of life, as they help to fill gaps in our understanding of when animals with particular traits separate from each other.
“Indeed, pplatypus belongs to the class Mammalia. But genetically, it is a mixture of mammals, birds and reptiles, ”Guojie Zhang, a biologist at the University of Copenhagen and co – author of the recent study, said in a press release. “It has retained many of its original features – perhaps to its success in adapting to the environment in which it lives.”
And the animals need that extra boost. The bonfires went out of Australia last year attempts to locate the platypus more difficult, as well as everything more necessary. (One population was rescued and sent back to the country in the summer.) Following the echidna genome in sequence will allow genetic regulation of an endangered species as well. Of course, our weird critics can’t go the route of the thylacine and the dodo.