Sunday, December 3, 2017

How bearded dragons switch their sex

Australian bearded dragons

Bearded dragons are known for being able to change their sex in increasing heat and researchers haven't known why until now. Bearded dragons are the weirdest of the reptile family, having two sex chromosomes and a temperature override that determine sex. An experiment done in Australia showed that when the lizards eggs are incubated below 32 degrees Celsius, dragons with two Z chromosomes develop as male while dragons with one Z and one W develop as female. However, when the temperature increases above 32 degrees Celsius, the male ZZ dragons will develop as female. The researchers found that the sex-reversed female dragons increase the activity of two of their genes. These two genes have been linked to sex differentiation in many other animals. Changes in the dragons RNA were also found. Certain sections of RNA that would normally be removed remained. These sections contained stop codons which prematurely ended the RNA sequence, thus allowing the sex change. 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/how-bearded-dragons-switch-their-sex?mode=topic&context=87
https://voices.nationalgeographic.org/2013/09/22/7-gender-bending-animals/

5 comments:

  1. I think that this concept is very interesting! I have never known that bearded dragons can change their sex from increased heat production in their bodies. What fascinates me the most is that the heat production actually causes changes in RNA sequences. How cool! I wonder what humans would be like if we could do that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This was a very interesting article, its crazy to see that temperature plays a role in what gender the bearded dragon becomes at the end. It would be cool if they tried these experiments or research on other animals and reptiles.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have done extensive work with Diamond Back terrapins and they too exhibit the same ability for temperature to influence sex. With knowledge like this and knowing now that it is a stop codon this can be very beneficial to science in that if the species is struggling in captivity if the ability to gather eggs can be achieved the temperature can be tweaked to create more females to “save” the future of the species. Interesting article.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This article is very interesting. I did not know that bearded dragons can change their sex due to the influence of temperature. Since the two genes that increase in activity in these reptiles are found in many other animals, researching other animals may help us learn more about these animals and how their genes work.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Just like everyone else, I enjoyed reading this summary! It's so cool to see that someone can change their gender all based upon temperatures. I wonder how long each sex change takes and what the highest number of sex changes in a day is so far!

    ReplyDelete