Everyday Absurdities

[Flying Grype]

-- No matter how prepared you are for the shelter's population of "Hemingway cats" it's still jarring to see a cat with seven or eight toes per paw.

I volunteer at a no-kill shelter and we have so. many. polydactyls. A more experienced volunteer told me that she's never seen as many in one place as she has in this county, in all the shelters and feral colonies and everything. I'm not sure if it's just genetic -- do you get a few of them into a population and they just take over? -- or if it has something to do with all the toxic waste dumps around there.

Some of them have these incredible glorious double-paws, like an extra foot growing out of each foot. Yo dawg, I heard you like feet...

[Chromatix]

It probably has a lot to do with autozygosity, which is strongly associated with inbreeding. This also means that if an inbred cat breeds with another inbred cat from the same stock, the inbreeding level (the probability of any pair of chromosomes being autozygotic) goes up.

[BeeMused]

I volunteer at a no-kill shelter and we have so. many. polydactyls. A more experienced volunteer told me that she's never seen as many in one place as she has in this county, in all the shelters and feral colonies and everything. I'm not sure if it's just genetic -- do you get a few of them into a population and they just take over? -- or if it has something to do with all the toxic waste dumps around there.

There are many genes that cause polydactylis in cats, some of those are dominant. Meaning that if one of the parents have it, the offspring will have it too. So it's not really surprizing that there are many in one place and none in others.

Fun fact from human genetics: having 6 fingers is dominant over having 5!

[AccountingDrone]

Fun fact from human genetics: having 6 fingers is dominant over having 5!

No shit?!

I feel deprived now

So how did we end up with mostly 5 fingered people?

[BeeMused]

So how did we end up with mostly 5 fingered people?

Any extra fingers/toes are surgically removed, so you hardly see it. Wikipedia has an entry for it, with pics! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polydactyly
I'm sure there are local clusters of polydactyl humans in some areas.

[dalesys]

... some of those are dominant. Meaning that if one of the parents have it, the offspring will have it too ...

Woop woop! Genetics 101 error!
Dominant means that a trait is expressed if the critter has one or two copies of the allele in question, one inherited from each parent, so a cat can be one of 4 types:
First gene from sire, second from dam:

PP => polydactyl [P homozygous]
Pp or pP => polydactyl [P heterozygous]
pp => common [p homozygous]

All kittens with a PP parent will be PP or Pp, thus polydactyl.
All kittens with both parents pp will be pp, thus common.

Kittens of PP x PP pairing: 100% PP, all poly
Kittens of PP x Pp pairing: 50% PP, 50% Pp, all poly
Kittens of PP x pp pairing: 100% Pp, all poly
Kittens of Pp x Pp pairing: 25% PP, 50% Pp, 25% pp, 75% poly
Kittens of Pp x pp pairing: 50% Pp, 50% pp, half poly
Kittens of pp x pp pairing: 100% pp, all common

Percentages are averages over a large number of litters... a five kitten litter from Pp x pp will not be two poly, two common and one half-n-half.

Entertaining fact of life: male/female ratio is close to 50:50, right? But in four child families there are 400 families with 3 of 1 for every 300 families with two of each.

[Dreamstalker]

I polydactyl kitties. McGriff was a poly; his two siblings were of completely normal paw size. He was able to pick up dry kibble (not a lot, but he did do it) in a paw and bring it elsewhere to nom on.

[thatcrazyredhead]

Fun fact from human genetics: having 6 fingers is dominant over having 5!

Really? Most people I know have 10.

My mom has the most adorable dilute calico polydactyl kitty. She beats up on the puggle lol.

[Chromatix]

Entertaining fact of life: male/female ratio is close to 50:50, right? But in four child families there are 400 families with 3 of 1 for every 300 families with two of each.

I can think of one good reason why that might be: if the odd one out is often the youngest. Parents will often keep trying until they get the gender they want.

[Ree]

Sib: "How do you have a baby?"

My granddaughter was asking questions about the new baby that's coming in December.
She asked if she could be there when they got the baby.
(Personally, I think it would be great for her to see her sibling being born, but her Mommy was worried that she would be too young to understand the level of pain and be worried and scared for her Mommy.)
I told her that she could probably be at the hospital, but I doubted that her Mommy wanted her in the room.
She asked her Mommy how they would be getting the baby out, and my daughter just had this "deer in the headlights" look, as she struggled to share just enough without revealing too much that would probably end up getting shared at school with her little friends.
I said, "Women have a special place where the baby comes out."
Her Mom, said, "Yes. There is a special place that the baby will come out."
Of course, this was just followed by more questions, and my daughter was squirming as I sat, grinning at the whole thing.
Finally, I said, "Honey, I know you have heard of a vagina." (She has.)
She said, "Ohhhhh....the baby's going to come out Mommy's China."

(Her Mommy added quickly, "So you just keep that to yourself," and then added to me, "Thanks a lot, Mom.")

[wolfie]

Entertaining fact of life: male/female ratio is close to 50:50, right? But in four child families there are 400 families with 3 of 1 for every 300 families with two of each.

I can think of one good reason why that might be: if the odd one out is often the youngest. Parents will often keep trying until they get the gender they want.

I can think of a better reason: in families with 4 children, there are 16 possible birth orders, with "M" representing a boy, and "F" representing a girl.

MMMM
MMMF
MMFM
MMFF
MFMM
MFMF
MFFM
MFFF
FMMM
FMMF
FMFM
FMFF
FFMM
FFMF
FFFM
FFFF

Note that there are 2 cases of all 4 being the same gender, 8 with 3 of one gender and 1 of the other, and 6 with 2 of each gender. Assuming 50/50 random chance for any given birth, that leads to 400 families with 3 of one and 1 of the other for every 300 with 2 of each.

[Fire_on_High]

Some of them have these incredible glorious double-paws, like an extra foot growing out of each foot. Yo dawg, I heard you like feet...

I'm pretty sure my cat feels like he was ripped off by life in that he was born with normal paws. Smartest cat I've ever seen, crazy dexterity with his paws; he WATCHES us use our hands and tries to mimic the movements.

Alas, not being a "thumb cat", he can only do so much...

[Seshat]

Fun fact from human genetics: having 6 fingers is dominant over having 5!

So how did we end up with mostly 5 fingered people?

I just did a quick spot of research.

Some cases of polydactyly are dominant: however, many (not all) forms of polydactyly are part of genetic syndromes which have negative consequences in other ways.

Also, few forms of polydactyly in humans result in a fully functional additional finger or thumb - apparently the most common is a bit of finger-shaped flesh with a nail and possibly a bone, but no ability to actually be used. Just sort of .. ornamental.

[AccountingDrone]

I just did a quick spot of research.

Some cases of polydactyly are dominant: however, many (not all) forms of polydactyly are part of genetic syndromes which have negative consequences in other ways.

Also, few forms of polydactyly in humans result in a fully functional additional finger or thumb - apparently the most common is a bit of finger-shaped flesh with a nail and possibly a bone, but no ability to actually be used. Just sort of .. ornamental.

Ah, makes sense.

Though I got to thinking about the knee jerk reaction of relatively uneducated people and 'witch burnings' of people who are different [or the exposure of infants with defects in the past] taking people out of the breeding population.

[Antisocial_Worker]

Yesterday in my statistics class, the teacher cited a study that concluded that not nearly enough people wash their hands after using public bathrooms. Then he read Everybody Poops to the class.