Sunday, February 18, 2007

Tiny duckling has rare mutation: 4 legs

Intelligent designer trying out some new features?

Joking aside, mutations are often caused by copying errors in the genetic material during cell division and by exposure to ultraviolet or ionizing radiation, chemical mutagens, or viruses. Some mutations can lead to changes in a whole species naturally over time.

Mutations create variation in the gene pool, and the less favorable (or deleterious) mutations are removed from the gene pool by natural selection, while more favorable (beneficial or advantageous) ones tend to accumulate, resulting in (gasp!) evolutionary change.(From Wikipedia...read more about mutations HERE.)

Article from Yahoo news:

LONDON - Webbed feet run in Stumpy's family, but a rare mutation has left the eight-day-old duckling with two nearly full-sized legs behind the two he runs on.

Nicky Janaway, a duck farmer in New Forest, Hampshire, 95 miles southwest of London, unveiled the duckling to reporters on Saturday.

"It was absolutely bizarre. I was thinking 'he's got too many legs' and I kept counting 'one, two, three, four,'" Janaway said.

Stumpy would probably not survive in the wild, but Janaway, who runs the Warrawee Duck Farm in New Forest says he is doing well.

"He's eating and surviving so far and he is running about with those extra legs acting like stabilizers," Janaway said.

The mutation is rare, but cases have been recorded across the world. One duckling named Jake was born in Queensland, Australia, in 2002 with four legs but died soon after.

7 comments:

CyberKitten said...

Saw that in the paper today.... Just think of the consequences if it survives & breeds true... Ducks with six 'legs'... and some people say that random mutation can produce new types of animals..... [grin].

What next... fish with lungs that can live on the land... Never... [chuckle].

Deacon Barry said...

Maybe that's how dragons and basilisks got started. I do hope they try breeding from him, and create a race of 4-legged ducks. It'll really piss off the fundies. And just think of Christmas dinner - a leg for all the family!

Krystalline Apostate said...

& a great booming voice resounded from on high:
"OOPS!"

beepbeepitsme said...

I think you will find that this is a case of a double yolk that has not separated to form 2 discrete ducklings. The "twin" duckling has been mostly absorbed by the surviving twin with the only evidence of the second duckling being the extra set of legs.

I would like to see an X ray of said duckling.

Something similar also can happen with a human fertilized egg which splits and then instead of producing twins, produces one human baby with vestigal features of the only partially formed identical twin.

Stardust said...

Something similar also can happen with a human fertilized egg which splits and then instead of producing twins, produces one human baby with vestigal features of the only partially formed identical twin.

beepbeep, I was thinking the same thing after seeing this stuff that I wrote about here:

Perfect "creation"?

beepbeepitsme said...

Yeah - nothing perfect about it. If there is a god, he/she isn't perfect.

Krystalline Apostate said...

Actually, PZ Meyers did a post on this:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/index.php?page=2
"No, no, no. This is almost certainly not the result of a mutation, and it's one of my pet peeves when the media makes this wrong assumption, that every change in a newborn is the product of a genetic change. This is the result of a developmental error, not a genetic one, most likely caused by a fusion of two embryos in a single egg."