DNA results for Tut's lineage

[Rokcet Scientist]

Again i find myself taking a view different from the 'accepted' line. Inbreeding does not necessarily result in weaklings, it can in fact be used to produce 'desirable' traits and is the means by which every breed of domestic animal and pet has been achieved.

No, Roy, when they try to "produce 'desirable' traits" they try to avoid inbreeding – mating with close relatives – at all costs, because that has the opposite result: it weakens the individuals and the species.
This is why all zoos, worldwide, and all modern cattle farmers in western countries, keep meticulous (DNA) records of which animal mates with which other animal, and why those animals are moved around to other zoos, or farms, to mate with as fas as possible removed individuals.

It would work with humans if the parents were selected as we do with cattle for example.

Cattle selected to mate are selected for their NON-relationship! The further removed, the better, for the health of the species.

[Digit]

Sorry! Take a dog with a desirable trait, you mate it with a bitch that you hope is similar. The nearest pup dog to the desire is then bred to its mother and so on.
Check if you don't believe me.
That is repeated over a number of generations till the breed is 'fixed, how else do you think so many different breeds of dog exist today?
Check Darwin and his Doves.

From the horses mouthif you like...
http://www.cermar.co.uk/In-breeding%20depression.doc

Roy.

[Minimalist]

There seems to be a point where the law of diminishing returns kicks in though, Dig. They fixate on that one "desirable" trait but ignore the rest of the gene pool.

The result is crippled German shepherds.

[Digit]

Or a multi thousand dollar Hereford bull Min. I mean, how do you think man got from the Auroch to the domestic milch cow? It's done by selective inbreeding!
Your point about the GS Min is not an argument against inbreeding, more an argument against stupid breeders.
After WW2 the draft horse here was heading the way of the Dodo, but enthusiasts kept the breed going.
Eventually a stud book was made and standards applied, unfortunately with the Shire too much emphasis was placed on size, now the animal is useless at the plow as it is so tall it no longer pulls the implement behind it, it simply pulls it out of the ground!
Here...
http://www.nurturalhorse.com/images/Shire-Horse.jpg

Is that due to inbreeding per se or daft breeders?

Roy.

[Minimalist]

more an argument against stupid breeders.

No argument. Reference my earlier comment about fixing something till it breaks. In the case of the GS it is not an "unintended" consequence. They were deliberately trying to give it a "sleek" look in the hip without considering what that sleek look meant for the bone structure of the animal.

Yeah. You convinced me. Stupid breeders.

[Rokcet Scientist]

how do you think man got from the Auroch to the domestic milch cow? It's done by selective inbreeding!

No, not by selective INbreeding, because that leads to undesirable results: we wouldn't have healthy cattle today, unless NON-related individuals were used. Yes, you take care to select individuals with desirable traits for mating, but at the same time you take care that those individuals are genetically as far removed from each other as possible or it will negate the object of the exercise.

Sure, greedy people will cross related animals to get certain coat or build patterns for a quick buck. But those aberrations, because that's what they are, will not lead to a fixed trait in a healthy species. Quite the contrary. It will weaken the species.
Those German shepherds Min mentioned won't be with us a thousand years from now.

I have a 'Bengal' cat, Shaka. He is absolutely gorgeous! He is a housecat-sized leopard (5 kilograms/11 pounds) with spots, and two-toned ('bicolor' in the jargon) rosettes and arrowheads. The Serengeti at my feet. But before he was a year old he was suddenly paralyzed because of 'patella luxation', a.k.a. floating kneecaps in his hind legs. A direct consequence of INbreeding. He couldn't stand or walk anymore and would surely have died if I hadn't had major orthopaedic surgery performed on him (by an orthopaedic veterinarion surgeon specialized in big cats like lion, tigers, and leopards), which cost me a couple thousand bucks, and Shaka 3 months of painful rehabilitation and fysiotherapy! So we did, and today Shaka is 10 years old, and enjoying life. Because of my (non-genetic) intervention. If I hadn't I would have had to have him euthanised, and if he had had any progeny, they would have died fast (too). Of patella luxation. Bengal cats, bred like that, i.e. through INbreeding, will never result in a healthy, viable species. Shaka is proof. Here's his portrait today, you're looking at a non-starter species:



After the above it may not surprise you that I never had Shaka sire any progeny. I don't want to be responsible for cats dying horribly at a young age. Even though I could easily have made a cool thousand per insemination (Shaka is, visually, a prize winner in the Bengal breeder world)!

[Digit]

Well RS I can only suggest that you stick to your own views as with trotting to Oz and ignore the practise of producing new breeds.
Alternatively you could consider your own argument about the lone shipwreck survivor and explain how, without inbreeding, his DNA would survive within a larger group.
Or again you could look at this. In the wild you capture a very rare colored animal of the same type as you already have, we'll say it is spotted. No one has ever seen a spotted one before. You cross it with a domestic one and get an off spring.
Please explain the next step.
If in doubt check Mendel!

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Modern concepts of genetics go back no further than Mendel, though. I doubt that paleolithic dog breeders were keeping track of DNA when they had no knowledge of such a molecule.


BTW, gorgeous cat, R/S.

[Digit]

That comment Min applies also to the farmers who produced the modern Pig, Draught Horse, Beef and milk Cattle, Chickens, Doves and Sheep etc.
And as regards moggies...

http://www.messybeast.com/inbreed.htm

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Well RS I can only suggest that you stick to your own views as with trotting to Oz and ignore the practise of producing new breeds.
Alternatively you could consider your own argument about the lone shipwreck survivor and explain how, without inbreeding, his DNA would survive within a larger group.
Or again you could look at this. In the wild you capture a very rare colored animal of the same type as you already have, we'll say it is spotted. No one has ever seen a spotted one before. You cross it with a domestic one and get an off spring.
Please explain the next step.
If in doubt check Mendel!

Mendel, schmendel, Roy!
Adolescent males are not kicked out of their mother's group for nothing. Even mother nature knows about this.

[...] Or again you could look at this. In the wild you capture a very rare colored animal of the same type as you already have, we'll say it is spotted. No one has ever seen a spotted one before. You cross it with a domestic one and get an off spring.
Please explain the next step.
If in doubt check Mendel!

I know how they do it with Bengals, Roy. I found out after a lot of research, because 'they' keep it secret. It is a dark secret: a wild Asian Leopard Cat is crossed with an Abessinian or Mau, the offspring is mated with another – unrelated – wild Asian Leopard Cat, whose offspring is mated with Russian Blues or, yet again, with a(n unrelated) Mau or Abessinian. Then they start mating the offspring of both with each other. And INbreeding creeps in! It is a hit and miss process until a desired improvement in coat is achieved. So on, so forth. Until the 4th and 5th generation ("F4" and "F5") IF they have and the desired coat and can be handled in a household as a pet. Earlier generations are too wild. The undesirables from the (earlier) couplings, by far the majority, are simply killed.
The secret is that F6 and further generations of Bengals lose their coat markings. They don't look like Bengals anymore. Beautiful F7 Bengals do not exist. So the total of saleable Bengals will always remain limited, and these saleable Bengals – always F4 and F5 – thus command a high price! It's a purely commercial business, which maintains itself, because there will never be a real, separate Bengal species, capable of maintaining itself as a separate species. Wild Asian Leopard Cats will always be neccessary as a starting point to 'create' Bengals.

So Mendel's theories do not apply to Bengals (and doubtless to a myriad of other species).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_Cat

[Digit]

Mendel's ideas apply to ALL matings.
And BTW, I've yet to see Gnu's, Hartebeasts, Elephants etc kick anything out of the herd.

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Mendel's ideas apply to ALL matings.

Isn't that what the pope said to Galileo Galileï...?

LOL!
And you complain about my sticking to my theory of HE crossing to Oz on foot?
LOL!

[Digit]

Would you care to prove me wrong?
BTW, it's not MY theory, unlike hoofing along to Oz.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

That comment Min applies also to the farmers who produced the modern Pig, Draught Horse, Beef and milk Cattle, Chickens, Doves and Sheep etc.

Agreed.

I suppose we should be happy that they never did produce the Crocoduck by accident?

[Rokcet Scientist]

I suppose we should be happy that they never did produce the Crocoduck by accident?

Well, they do seem on the verge of producing the Mammophant... Which will be just like my Shaka: a hybrid, a non-starter species. Losing its wannabe characteristics in a few generations. If they are fertile at all, that is.