Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: general_re
And what is the relationship between a woodpecker and a fruit bat?

The obvious, none.(i.e. in a familial relationship, they both fly, breathe oxygen etc. etc.)

56 posted on 02/28/2003 6:50:31 PM PST by AndrewC
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies ]


To: AndrewC
The obvious, none.(i.e. in a familial relationship, they both fly, breathe oxygen etc. etc.).

None? No relationship at all, save that they have some common elements or attributes?

Alas, nobody has yet posted the complete mitochondrial genome for woodpeckers yet. But they have for chickens, which I assume also have no relationship to bats. How, then, do we explain that chicken mitochondrial DNA is more similar to bat mitochondrial DNA than it is to mosquito mitochondrial DNA? How do common elements account for the degree of similarity? Don't the relative similarities suggest that chickens and bats are more closely related than chickens and mosquitos? Dare we posit the relative distance from common ancestors here, or is there some other way to account for the comparisons?

But don't take my word for it - take the accession numbers and do the pairwise BLAST yourself:

Gallus gallus (domestic chicken) - NC_001323
Artibeus jamaicensis (Jamaican fruit-bat) - NC_002009
Anopheles gambiae (African malaria mosquito) - NC_002084

57 posted on 02/28/2003 10:03:23 PM PST by general_re (Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 56 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson