Many critters have necleated r.b.c.'s

[James Mahaffy <mahaffy@dordt.edu>]

Dick <binder@zk3.dec.com> wrote:

> Douglas Goudie writes:
> 
> > She was
> > in the process of doing everything she could to prove the reddish,
> > nucleated, spherical-shaped objects were not red blood cells.
> 
> I don't understand.  What proof would be necessary?  Red blood cells
> are NOT nucleated; if she found nuclei, what she found could not have
> been red blood cells.

If I remember right (and I do try and teach Zoology) a lot of critters
have nucleated red blood cells.  I know birds and amphibians do and I
suspect reptiles do to (although I did not check).  There are some
differences in non mammalian physiology.  Although I think I recall that
birds DNA in their nucleus is largely shut down, so it may not be that
different physiologically than a non nucleated mammalian r.b.c. (but now
you are treading on my foggy memory).

-- 
James F. Mahaffy                   e-mail: mahaffy@dordt.edu
Biology Department                 phone: 712 722-6279
Dordt College                      FAX 712 722-1198
Sioux Center, Iowa 51250