Thursday, April 6, 2017

Is it a Boy or a Girl?- Baby Sea Turtles


        New research has come about that is able to help determine the gender of baby sea turtles. In most species the gender is determined if there is and X and Y chromosome present or just two X chromosomes. This however is not the case with sea turtle since they do not have sex chromosomes. Instead the sea turtles gender is determined as they develop in their incubation state. The biggest contributing factor that influences the gender is the environment the turtle is living in. It has been found that warmer weather and sands leads to females and colder temperature and sand produces males. It is hard to conform this due to the fact that the sea turtles sexual anatomy isn't distinguishable until they are full mature.
       Scientists from Florida Atlantic University have recently begun using immunohistochemical (IHC). This practice allows researchers to identify the sex without harming the species, take into account sex ratios, and acknowledge the relationship between the environment and the sex.
       Research as also found that the RNA binding protein, CIRPB could be responsible determining the sex of the turtles. CIRPB is temperature responsive which supports the idea that certain temperatures produce a male while others produce a female.

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