Okay, seems I’m getting a reputation for quirky animal-related stories! A while back I posted on a message-board about a news item on glow-in-the-dark cats, which I must admit I thought was rather interesting:
A team of scientists led by Kong Il-keun, a cloning expert at Gyeongsang National University, produced three cats possessing altered fluorescence protein (RFP) genes, the Ministry of Science and Technology said.
“It marked the first time in the world that cats with RFP genes have been cloned,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The ability to produce cloned cats with the manipulated genes is significant as it could be used for developing treatments for genetic diseases and for reproducing model (cloned) animals suffering from the same diseases as humans,” it added.
This led to another post being sent to me today -- this time from The Register, about pigs! The cats involved manipulated genes, whereas the following pig experiment used injected genetic material from jellyfish, which has been passed onto two of eleven offspring:
One of the three transgenic “glow-in the dark” pigs born back in 2006 in China’s Northeast Agricultural University in Harbin has given birth to fluorescent piglets, indicating the “technology to breed transgenic pigs via cell nuclear transfer is mature”, according to professor Liu Zhonghua…. Liu said: “This technology promises to breed excellent transgenic pigs and even raise special pigs to provide organs for human transplant operations in the future.”
This naturally led to a series of jokes about night-barbecues, where you’ll never lose your sausages off the plate and so on and so forth. I also thought about how as an inherited trait for cats and pigs, it wouldn’t be helpful in the face of predators -- although a puffed-up glowing kitten might startle a dog momentarily!
Being easily seen by a predator is one of the factors that makes this rather shiny penguin such rarity -- thanks to Grrlscientist who posted about a leucistic Adélie penguin found in Antarctica, near Mawson’s hut.
Leucism isn’t the same as albinism, which became the focus of a discussion I had with my partner, who just dismissed it as an ‘albino penguin’. ‘Albino’ refers only to things which have two recessive genes and, therefore, no pigment anywhere -- the red eyes are devoid of pigmentation and the redness comes from the retina’s blood vessels.
Leucism apparently involves a lack of pigmentation (‘washed out’) but not complete; some of the descriptions I found in both in print and online discusses the condition as either inherited or possibly induced by trauma. Leucism is also apparently rarer than the similar condition schizochroism, which involves loss or dilution of only some pigments.
Grrlscientist’s blog (‘Living the Scientific Life / Scientist, Interupted’) features a lovely close-up of such a penguin -- ‘Wow — A Tuxedo-less Penguin!’
Although her blog cites Rhonda Pike, who is an Australian Antarctic Division biologist, saying that “only one all-white penguin has been observed over a number of breeding seasons in a population of 4,000″ -- I did find the above picture on a December 6, 1996 entry from an Antarctic journal about an earlier sighting of a leucistic penguin:
“That bird is 1 in 100,000--a leucistic penguin,” she explained to me, “They don’t have the ability to produce black plummage.”
“So, it is not an albino?” I asked, never having heard the term before.
“No, because, if you look carefully, you can see that the bird has pigmented feathers.”
Sure enough, the wings and back were a buff, beige colour and the beak an almost cherry red. I enquired about its being rejected and Fiona described the bird’s appearance in the colony a few years ago. At first, the penguin--a female--was surrounded and examined by numerous other birds. In time, she found a mate and has successfully bred. This year, she lost her egg and her nest was looking pretty scant of rocks.
Some great additional information about the history of these penguins can be found in the comments of Grrscientist’s original post -- including this paper (pdf format) by Steve Forrest and Ron Naveen, and further discussion on amelanistic (lacking melanin) and melanic-schizochroistic characteristics.
…not that I am an expert in such matters of making oneself attractive to fellow birds -- but I’m certain that a few dance-steps a la ‘Happy Feet‘ could be inspirational -- just check the moves of this Mannequin Bird, thanks to Stephen Fry on Q.I!
Oh, Whilst we’re on the topic of nature and its wonders -- don’t forget to check out the Tangled Bank blog carnival -- now out on Aardvarchaeology. You’ll note that it includes an entry by Tangled Up In Blue Guy who also gives a great summary of the other sort of glowing beasties -- the phylogeny of bioluminescent animals. Don’t forget -- Science Education links for 2007 at Larry Ferlazzo’s Website, a fellow ESL teacher who also sees the value of using Science to teach English.
Reference:
Leroi, A.M. Mutants: On the form, Varieties and Errors of the Human Body. Harper Perenial, Great Britain.
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