This Mutant Crayfish Clones Itself, and It's Taking Over Europe
Last edited Mon Feb 5, 2018, 08:19 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: New York Times
This Mutant Crayfish Clones Itself, and It’s Taking Over Europe
Carl Zimmer
MATTER FEB. 5, 2018
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Over the past five years, Dr. Lyko and his colleagues have sequenced the genomes of marbled crayfish. In a study published on Monday, the researchers demonstrate that the marble crayfish, while common, is one of the most remarkable species known to science.
Before about 25 years ago, the species simply did not exist. A single drastic mutation in a single crayfish produced the marbled crayfish in an instant.
The mutation made it possible for the creature to clone itself, and now it has spread across much of Europe and gained a toehold on other continents. In Madagascar, where it arrived about 2007, it now numbers in the millions and threatens native crayfish.
“We may never have caught the genome of a species so soon after it became a species,” said Zen Faulkes, a biologist at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, who was not involved in the new study.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/science/mutant-crayfish-clones-europe.html
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Related: Clonal genome evolution and rapid invasive spread of the marbled crayfish (Nature Ecology & Evolution)
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as good as the other crayfish, I'll eat 'em. They're just like miniature freshwater lobsters.
