Hands up who was, in biology class, given the example of the coelacanth as a living fossil, unchanged for millions of years.
Yeah, that's a lot of hands.
Guess what.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the coelacanth is not a true living fossil, having been busily evolving...just not in ways that affect it's phenotype.
Likely the phenotype is highly efficient for its environment and thus conserved, but the fish has been evolving at a more hidden level. And something truly strange happened about 10 million years ago...
...our friend the coelacanth picked up 62 genes from other, unrelated species through horizontal transfer.
How much does that drive evolution? And how did it get so many? This isn't normal.
So, not a living fossil, but possibly even stranger...
No comments:
Post a Comment