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The Mutant All-Female Crayfish, Which Reproduces by Cloning Itself, Is Filling Europe at Alarming Speed (atlasobscura.com)
The marbled crayfish looks much like any other freshwater crustacean. It has two claws, ten legs, and an attractive blue-brown marbled shell. Yet this six-inch creature, found in streams and lakes around the world, is far more sinister than you might expect. From a report: Its new scientific name gives a few clues: Procambarus virginalis. Every marbled crayfish, known as a marmorkreb in German, is female -- and they reproduce by cloning themselves. Frank Lyko, a biologist at the German Cancer Research Center, first heard about the marbled crayfish from a hobbyist aquarium owner, who picked up some "Texas crayfish" at a pet shop in 1995. They were strikingly large, and they laid enormous batches of eggs -- hundreds, in a single go. Soon, the New York Times reports, the hobbyist was beset with so many crayfish he was giving them away to his friends. And soon after that, marmorkrebs were showing up in pet stores upon Europe.
There was something very strange about these crayfish. They were all female, and they all laid hundreds of eggs without mating. These eggs, in turn, hatched into hundreds more females -- with each one growing up fully able to reproduce by herself. In 2003, scientists sequenced their DNA and confirmed what many owners already believed to be the case: Each baby crayfish was a clone of its mother, and they were filling Europe's fishtanks at alarming speed. Just 25 years ago, the marbled crayfish did not exist at all. Now, they can be found in the wild by the millions in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, the Ukraine, Japan, and Madagascar.
There was something very strange about these crayfish. They were all female, and they all laid hundreds of eggs without mating. These eggs, in turn, hatched into hundreds more females -- with each one growing up fully able to reproduce by herself. In 2003, scientists sequenced their DNA and confirmed what many owners already believed to be the case: Each baby crayfish was a clone of its mother, and they were filling Europe's fishtanks at alarming speed. Just 25 years ago, the marbled crayfish did not exist at all. Now, they can be found in the wild by the millions in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, the Ukraine, Japan, and Madagascar.
uh, uh, finds a way...
Grab a really big pot, and some seasoning, I'm hungry.
FYI: Madagascar and Japan are not in Europe.
Just head on down to Louisiana and pick up a batch of Cajuns from the bayou and they will have those crayfish under control in no time. Don't bother bringing in snakes or gators to control the Cajuns though, they'll eat those too.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Wonder how they taste?
We have Tribbles.
There's a quick, easy solution to this.
How do they taste?
I, for one, welcome our new crayfish overlords.
The trouble with marbled crayfish....
It's the first sign of the matriarchal utopia...
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Where did this thing come from? It's kind of freaky that it's population is growing so quickly and exponentially. I wonder what kinds of havoc it is wrecking on local ecosystems. Was this thing man made?
I had no idea that crawfish are left-handed
a feminist's wet dream, a world without male privilege where everyone is equal (because everyone is female and identical clones)
This looks like a GE product to me, some company that thought that super crawfish would be commercially useful. Also look at the source, from a pet store. It is not like this started in the wild.
You can't handle the truth! - Because I don't post left all my comments get modded down, bye bye Karma.
It will be interesting to see what happens. Sexual reproduction is critical for spreading favorable genes like resistance to predators, poisons, etc. Since these are all clones they aren't going to have those advantages and sooner or later will encounter some factor that wipes them out. Apple farmers face a similar problem since each variety is a single genetic variant that is grafted onto other trees.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
is that they got them wet and fed them during the night.
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Cajun Navy deployed. Have Hot Sauce will Travel.
You mean a species which can grow at a geometric rate, doesn't need to breed, and which is pretty much a scavenger and will eat anything?
If the 'matriarchal utopia' involved the collapse of entire ecosystems, then sure.
Otherwise, not so much. Such a species will pretty much decimate any body of water if gets into.
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What about genetic drift? How many generations of these can there be, before genetic drift causes a fatal defect? Also, are all of them, in every part of the world, still clones? Or are there more than one archetype?
Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of replicative fading where the telomeres or some such got shorter over time until the clones were not viable?
Yes : *body* cell lines have such kind of control to avoid cells replicating too much.
But eggs are formed from *germ* cell lines, which are (by Nature's "design" - as its supposed to be the way a specie reproduce) not having any replication limit.
These are not "dolly the sheep"-style clones (a body cell used to form a new clone by transfering the nucleus, and might inherit some of the replication limits of the body cell).
These are parthenogenesis-style (see christian mythology about virgin mary) clones : some how, an non-fertilized egg-cell managed to grow into a full grown individual (usually, in other species, there's some kind of bug in the "meiosis" - the process is supposed to split the normally "diploid" genome into half "haploid". The wikipedia mentions that they are "triploid" - so having triplets instead of chromosome pairs - so it's quite a big bug in the meiosis procedure).
But it is an egg cell (although a chromosomaly abnormal one) that produces the whole individual, so no telomeres problems nor any other cell division limitations.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Europe is being overrun by all-female blue mutants?
Do they look like Jennifer Lawrence?
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
It's kind of freaky that it's population is growing so quickly and exponentially.
Actually no surprise.
These are not animal that care for their offsprings.
So they tend to lay a ton of eggs in hopes that a few of them manage to survive into reproductive adulthood.
The surprise isn't the massive amount of egg. (that would be a surprise for mammals like humans. that's the normal modus operandi for crayfish)
The surprise is that without any fertilization happening, the eggs are able to hatch and grow into an adult egg-laying female.
(Wikipedia mentions the animal having some chromosomic aberration and being triploid - thus the meiosis going wrong when trying to produce egg cells)
I wonder what kinds of havoc it is wrecking on local ecosystems.
Well, given that its current ecosystem is "aquariums" : its mostly pissing off their respective owner who simply don't know what to do with all the newly hatching crayfishes.
If let out freely in the nature :
- it should have predators in the nature. Not all eggs will hatch and grow to a reproductive adult. There's a reason why the reproductive strategy of all similar animals is "lay as many eggs as possible in the hope that some survive".
The population is currently explosing only because it's happening in the sheltered environment of aquarium, with humans taking care of their pets, and not much predation.
- if too many offsprings do hatch, they'll have to eat : they'll be in competion with all other animal in the environment, and they'll be in competition with all the other offsprings.
So mostly they'll probably stave very quickly, either by being outcompeted by other animal and/or by depleting the resources in their immediate environment.
So the damage to the environment depends on how fast they'll die.
Was this thing man made?
Technically, given that it currently survives because it's living in aquariums : yes, we human have contributed a bit to it.
But no, it definitely doesn't look like something coming out of some lab.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
And lobsters use telomerase to add telomere repeat sequences to their chromosomes after normal cell division. You can make viable clones for millions of generations this way.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It was just a toy
Such a species will pretty much decimate any body of water if gets into.
Yet we wouldn't have beer without yeast.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
What's wrong with a world without male privilege?
Apparently they're tasty. From the article in Nature:
"Julia Jones, a conservation scientist at Bangor University, UK, who first identified4 marbled crayfish in Madagascar in 20074, says that the species’ spread is due largely to their popularity as a food source. In 2009, she met a man on a bus carrying a plastic bag full of them that he planned to dump into his rice fields in the hope of creating a sustainable stock, she says.
"Stopping their spread in Madagascar will be “almost impossible”, says Lyko. Collaborators there have begun campaigns urging people not to transport them or release them into rice fields. The message is a hard sell in a country where poverty levels are high and marbled crayfish are a cheap and popular source of protein. Lyko’s colleague brought a few dozen that she had caught to a family barbecue. “This went down quite well,” he says."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
And, before the sarcastic comments on the statement that Julia Jones "first identified4 marbled crayfish in Madagascar in 20074" start-- that's slashdot stripping out formatting. The "4" should be a superscript, which refers to reference 4:
[4] Jones, J P. G. et al. Biol. Invasions 11, 1475–1482 (2009).
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
They aren't lobsters, they're CRAB PEOPLE!!!
Crab People,
crab people,
taste like crab,
talk like people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It's important to note that you shouldn't get your physics/medical/biological/legal advice from Star Trek.
Cloning is the most ancient form of reproduction. It's so simple and easy to implement. Sexual reproduction is much more complex, but took over for complex species because it allows individuals of a species to all differ slightly in every characteristic. When facing environmental stresses, these small differences show up as lesser or greater reproductive advantage. In a sexual species, any reproductive advantage means swift adaptation of the species to new environmental conditions.
These asexual crayfish (Procambarus sheldoni?) may be reproducing fast now, but like the Cavendish banana, they will be apt to succumb to some disease that a sexual species could adapt away from.
Invasive species or parthenogenesis is noting extraordinary.
I do not think it is a human GMO experiment but a nature's one.
And Europe has been invaded by a slightly different crayfish 100+ years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orconectes_limosus
It's called Parthogenesis, and there are a less than a hundred species known to do this.
Of course this is completely different from the microbial Mitosis.
The ones I've heard about are mostly island dwelling lizards, but I've only seen stuff on about a half dozen parthogenic species.
I wonder if their successful invasiveness is boosted by a lack of predators in the case of these crayfish.
They might be good for farming, if they are large enough to eat and taste good.
Well, at least until a plague strikes. That's the problem with monocultures, very prone to getting wiped out by a single plague.
Surely many local fish will love them as a dinner and perhaps they taste good to humans as well. My area is bombarded with exotic fish or invasive species. They are fun to catch and make a great meal as well . So why always be against invasive species?
Everything's bigger in Texas.
Constitutionally Correct
If you could copy the process and apply it to different stock, yes. Nature doesn't do this for a reason. If every member of a species has all the same flaws and weaknesses as well as no capacity to change, some disease that CAN change will find a way to exploit it then boom. All of them gone.
Now, they can be found in the wild by the millions in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, the Ukraine, Japan, and Madagascar.
The country's name in English is Ukraine. There's no "the" anymore. Look at their website for any Ukrainian embassy in an English speaking country. It was OK, although a bit unusual, to call it "the Ukraine" when it was part of the USSR, but Ukrainians don't like the use of "the Ukraine" any more. It's now just Ukraine.
1) Ethnic Russians who disagree and cite ancient, Soviet era English grammar books to justify the use of "the" can suck it.
2) Rules can be different for non-English languages such as French. But just because French uses their equivalent of "the", doesn't mean English should. Again, look at any of the country's consular websites in an English speaking country. No "the".
3) There's no articles (the, a, an) at all in the Ukrainian language (or Russian either) so you can't go there to justify the use of "the" in the name.
I hope they are good eatin.
How do you know Jesus was male? Did someone see his dick? I don't recall that part of the bible.....
And lo, did Jesus uncoil his serpent of manhood, and those near to him turned away from its majesty.[17]
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
There is definitely symbolism and flowery language in the Bible, particularly in the prophetic books of the old testament, as well as in Revelation, however, I am far more interested in this:
1. Your hypothetical quote, given the Bible's propensity for reusing imagery, makes the story of Adam and Eve take a really weird twist.
2. I'm not Jewish, so I don't know all the rules, but the concept of a circumcision involving anything that needs to *uncoil* is terrifying to me. It just seems like it would be prone to issues.
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
How do they taste?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
welcome our new crayfish clone overloards.
zosxavius photography
I suppose this is referencing TNG s2e18 Up The Long Ladder, where a hightech society is in danger of extinction because it's composed entirely of clones which will eventually become nonviable. Acquiring more genetic material (I recall them tricking Riker) would just delay the problem. Even if their society returned to sexual reproduction, they didn't have enough of a gene pool. I mainly remember that episode for the comic relief of the rustic Irish colonists. The two groups having to get along for the benefit of both was a great bit of Trek idealism.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Jesus was Jewish, and was (according the Gospel of Luke) circumcised 8 days after birth, in accordance with tradition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Eat the rich.
Just a few mutations to make it out of water and coat themselves in fat and fur and you've got tribbles . . .
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Jesus was Jewish, and was (according the Gospel of Luke) circumcised 8 days after birth, in accordance with tradition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
He could have been an hermaphrodite.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
How do you know Jesus was male? Did someone see his dick? I don't recall that part of the bible.....
And lo, did Jesus uncoil his serpent of manhood, and those near to him turned away from its majesty.[17]
Well, it's mentioned in Luke that he was circumcised...
And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
I wonder how they're sure it's a new species? Lots of species are capable of both sexual and asexual reproduction, and if only a single female of an invasive species with such an ability were introduced into a new environment, then obviously the entire resulting invasive population would be female - males can only be produced sexually.
So, it would seem to me that to be able to claim it as a new species they'd have to try to locate the original population, and confirm that they wouldn't/couldn't interbreed with the self-cloning females. Though I suppose if the entire species has yet to be identified, then naming it after the ability to self-clone is far from the worst option available.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
And I learned two new things today! The first was this. The second was that multiple holy foreskin relics were passed around for centuries. Horray?
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Luke 2:20-25. I'm always amazed how fundamentalists and atheists who claim to know the Bible, don't know the very basics.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Yes, that's what matriarchies DO.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Why isn't anybody asking the real question:are they delicious?
Lobsters are omnivores, and will scavenge detritus from the bottom. So yes, they definitely do bottom-feed.
Crayfish are also omnivores, and will eat from the bottom, capture live fish, vegetation, etc.
So really, no significant food-chain difference other than fresh or salt water. If you eat one, you might as well eat the other.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.