Re: [Re: [Re: Feathered topics.]]

[archosaur@usa.net]

Tony Canning <tonyc@foe.co.uk> wrote:

> > As a die hard JP fan myself, I feel that I am well within my Es/Ex >
>rights here when I say that if Chrichton had bothered to do his > >homework a
little more he could have used parthenogenesis in place of > >that silly
anuran idea. 
> > This would be especially advantageous to him, the writer, since all >
>diploid reptiles and birds give parthenogenic birth to MALE young.
> > 
> 
> Er, all the parthenogenetic reptiles I can think of are TRIPLOID giving
> birth to female young. 
> 
> In my view, a more plausible plot would have used temperature-dependent
> sex determination - the distribution of this character in diapsids and
> anapsids is consistent with with this being the ancestral state for >
Reptilia.  A simple thermostatic malfunction of the JP incubator could then
account for the appearance of both sexes.
> 
> NB, I am not claiming that dinosaurs had TSD, merely that it is more
> believable than compatibility with frog DNA.
> 
> Tony Canning
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I was actually excluding those infamous whiptails. In reptiles that do not
normally reproduced asexually, on the occasions when it does happen the young
turn out male due to their homogeneity (the most recent example would be an
observed case of parthenogenic reproduction in a timber rattlesnake). The
triploid lesbian whiptails of the southwest are obvious exceptions to the male
offspring "rule."

I was considering the parthenogenics as being a rare freak occurence also and
it would tie in well with the theme of the story (can't control nature and
all). The TSD could work to though it would still depend on a malfunction on
humanity's part. 

But hey, an oversight's an oversight right? :)

Jura

Jurassosaurus's Reptipage: A page devoted to the study of the reptilia:

http://reptilis.webjump.com

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