swimose.blogg.se

Discovery of white-eyed flies led to discovery of sex chromosomes. Variations weren’t recognized until a lone white-eyed fly turned up In 1910 in the famed lab of Thomas Hunt Morgan at Columbia University. Wild type fruit flies have characteristic brick-red eyes. “Wild type” back then referred to the most common phenotype – trait – in a population. In my days as a geneticist, I came to know the traits of fruit flies quite well. My observations inspired me to start thinking about the classic genetic term wild type.

That was just before the very first doodles appeared – the labradoodle, bred in Australia in the early 1980s. Still, seeing the apparent influx of poodle genes into canine genomes on the beach brought me back to my graduate school days. I watched, transfixed, as a goldendoodle followed a seabird far out into the surf, upsetting the human observers and revealing a superior avian intelligence. Perhaps I was witnessing a biased sampling, and the doodles simply have a combination of gene variants that somehow makes them love running in the sand.

What’s not to like about the dignified and elegant Poodle?” The mixes are deemed highly intelligent, although I can’t imagine any of my cats chasing a stick, let alone retrieving it. Why poodles? The breed evokes such effusive descriptions as “confident yet affectionate, but also active and deceivingly athletic. Several websites list 50+ variations on the poodle hybrid theme, including the bassetoodle, bernedoodle, chipoo, doxiepoo, Irish doodle, poochon, rottle, and shihpoo. I did an informal survey there over the course of a week, and estimated that approximately 70 percent of the dogs on the beach harbored poodle genes.ĭiverse doodles share the trademark tight curly fur, but vary in size, color, head shape, and behavioral and other traits. Zeke, shown here retrieving a stick from the surf at Lambert’s Cove, Martha’s Vineyard, is an aussiedoodle – a cross between an Australian shepherd and a poodle.