The "All Female" Mutants Are Here!
No Males Needed
Self Cloning Mutant Marbled Crawfish
I used to catch crayfish, crawfish or craw-daddies when I was a child growing up in Oregon. The crawfish we caught to eat are native to the Pacific Northwest. The species "Pacifastacus leniusculus," colors can go from brown, red, to bright orange.
As a child I would wade through our glacial streams, cold enough to make my feet go numb looking for bright orange crayfish hiding under rocks.
The crawfish I grew up with could only reproduce via the old fashioned way. This new species can reproduce asexually and they reproduce very quickly out producing native populations. The marbled crawfish are also hard on the environment, eating everything in sight and leaving a mess behind.
Mapping The Mutants Genome
A new study through the Illinois State University, professor Wolfgang Stein, a neurophysiologist who is part of a group of researchers that have sequenced the crayfishes unique genetic makeup. The genomes of this species don’t vary from one individual to the next. The species is made up of only females. This saves a lot of time, no need to find a partner and the species is reproducing at fantastical rates, overwhelming stable ecosystems they invade.
No Mating Rituals Needed!
The mutant species is only 30 years old and has spread around the world from just one female. You can find them in Japan, Madagascar, North America, and Europe.
The Traditional Parents
The original species the Marbled crayfish came from is called the Slough crayfish that originate from the southern part of America, Georgia and Florida. In the pet trade a mated pair produced offspring and one female instead of having two sets of chromosomes ended up with three. Amazing, everything worked!
Stupid Compassion
Through the pet trade one of these female marbled crayfish ended up in Germany and traded throughout the world. That’s why you never do the compassionate thing many Buddhist do, which is turn loose pet store flora and fauna. Bad things can happen with foolish compassion, like destroy ecosystems introducing non-native or mutated species.
Unknown-Unknowns
I keep thinking of Genetically modified plants and animals writing this article. You an see in real time what happens when introducing mutations into stable ecosystems. There is a genetically modified fish that has several different species of fish spliced into it’s genome….scary--"Genetically Modified Foods
I also keep thinking about Jurassic park. No worries boss, the dinosaurs can’t reproduce, boy were they wrong!
No Baby Daddy Needed!
Just one asexual female gets loose and 3 or 4 months later you can have over 300 offspring. All the offspring are females and reproducing as well. Boy that’s a lot of protein for starving populations! However that’s not what is happening, people aren’t eating the crayfish, but the crayfish are eating everything around them.
A link to My Blog
@reddust,
Definitely this is a very bad news for men :D And we are lucky this is only for Craw fish :D
They made clones isn't it? How wonderful nature, I don't know how this nature built like this! Pretty amazing and Lord Buddha said, we should not try to understand how it built and the end of universe! I think what he said extremely correct!
Cheers~
Sounds like science fiction that a mutant creature escapes and spreads across Europe and Africa. But it is real as this marbled crayfish is a potent invasive species that is threatening natural ecosystems. Thanks for the write up @reddust. You may also be interested in a new paper from Nature Ecology and Evolution. Asexual reproduction is extremely rare in vertebrates as it is thought that the lack of meiotic recombination leads to extinction. However one asexual vertebrate that is proliferating is the Amazon molly fish, Poecilia Formosa.
These two organisms show that you can do well without sex lol. Happy Valentine's Day!
photo credit
I read that this type of mutation is relatively rare amongst most species but if you know me, my imagination has no boundaries. Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply and more reading material...much love, Lisa <3
OMG...It is valentines day...hahaha, self love for asexuals I guess :p
Wait...I remember reading female chickens can turn into males..., we had a couple hens do that when I was raising chickens.....more like the jurassic park scenario
http://www.urbanchickenpodcast.com/ucp-episode-018/
Awesome post @reddust! I discovered this a few years ago. Found it to be true of many different species. If we only had memory at this moment of authentic original creation, I am sure it would like much different that is written in books. 💕🔥💕💌💛💚💜💘
I can't believe 3 sets of chromosomes work, I need to read up more on the mechanics. The universe just gets weirder and weirder @Innerstellar. Public school biology was so boring compared to digging into real research here on the net <3
That was a very interesting read I didn't know about almost anything in this article lol Maybe it was poor schooling or maybe it was me not paying attention....hmm...I gotta say though, I love almost any food....except for seafood. I don't know why. I just never got into the taste of it and the look of it kind of freaks me out too. Although I don't mind sushi every now and then.
I bet your interests were directed somewhere else. I loved science but public school education was very boring and I had panic attacks taking test. As a small child I have been collecting all sorts of interesting data on my own, hanging out in nature with no digital devices, this comes naturally for children... and now that the net is open to all sorts of science I am having a blast exploring.
I grew up on seafood, my grandpa had a fishing boat and my family fished up in Alaska regularly....My husband his family hate equatic food of all kinds...so sad :-(
I'm drooling over this beautiful crayfishes. I will give anything! ANYTHING! Just for a couple of them :(
Now we have 3 for a boiling pot party....hahaha <3
That's sweet, infinite crayfish and a lot of food for starving people!
If we could keep these crayfish out of ecosystems it would be awesome...but because of their ability to reproduce so quickly with so many females who in turn reproduce they are pushing native animals out of their natural environment. I figure if humans could hunt them they would wipe them out quickly, we have an amazing ability to hunt species to extinction...hahaha
Eat them all, I say. Not needing men, tss.
Yes they need to be eaten, how boring it would be if there were only females :P hahaha
did one of those crawfish look like Gloria Aldred?
the feminist dream come true?
The feminist wouldn't really want all men to disappear ...who could they blame for the ills of this world? hahaha <3 As if gender has anything to do with strength of character ;-)
Good point..they need men for whipping boys...
They would be pointless without men...I really try not to hate this world, but identity politics is testing my buddhist practice of equanimity.
What do you eat in it, frankly I have never tasted it before :p
They taste kinda like crab/shrimp, ...this is a funny description on how to eat mud-bugs as they say in Louisiana
https://www.cajuncrawfish.com/how-to-peel-crawfish.htm
this experience as i feel @reddust.
because I very often look for shrimp in the river, to the extent that my feet are wrinkled and wrinkled, because over time in the water.
But I really like about shrimp, let alone the results that I get myself @reddust.
My feet wrinkled too! Our native crawfish are tasty but I don't think I want to eat the mutants...what if the mutation can be passed on through epigenetic? All males on earth could become extinct. I happen to love men, this would make an awesome science fiction book. I've read several science fiction books that use this story line. Frank Herbert wrote a book called the "White Plague," where a mad scientist produced a germ to kill only females, leaving the world without any females...
This is an article that talks about how epigenetic work, it's a way for the body to adapt through modifying genes to a changing environment. Soooo interesting ...hahaha
https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/13/health/microbe-genes-human-dna-evolution/