Walking Before Flying

An anonymous reader writes "BYU biostaticians report in Nature their genetic analysis of the insect, known as the 'walking stick', which apparently gives a contrapuntal example of reversible evolution. Called Dollo's Law, the principle holds that the same evolutionary pathway can never be backtracked, because of random mutations. But this insect class first had wings, lost them, then got them back again. So what's next for some humans: a happy return to dragging their knuckles?"

Comments

Re:rapping knuckles...

[KDan]

That was part of one of the articles I read about this: They said that the same genes control whether wings or legs are well-formed, so when the wing is switched off, the genes in it are still protected from too much mutation until the wings are switched on again.

Then again, I'm by far no expert on the subject...

Here it is: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns999 93269.

Researchers assumed wings could not come back once lost as the genes needed to create them would mutate beyond repair once the wings disappeared. But Whiting says there is evidence from the fruit fly Drosophila that the same genes contain instructions for forming wings and legs.

If the same were true for stick insects, there would be an evolutionary pressure to stop wing genes from mutating, even in the insects that did not have wings. Those genes could then be turned back on in the future.

Daniel