Snake Discovered With Clawed Foot

[TheRundownRabbit]

I don't beleive ion evolution so im gonna say genetic mutation

 

[Bernzz]

Tries to grow a fourth arm* DAMN YOU NATURE! YOU'VE BESTED ME AGAIN!

Fourth? Third arm goes where now?

 

[FallenJellyDoughnut]

AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH

It's the Dragon from MULAN!!

RUN!

OH FUCK! RUN YOUR HOLE OUT CHILDREN! ITS COMING!

Anyway I think it iz teh awsumnez of evulutiun!

 

[DocLock]

Hmm... Does this mean my younger sister will get an extra arm with talons on it?

I'm expecting that 'cause she's a real snake..

 

[megatron2.0]

im very scared now, very very scared....

 

[Beartrucci]

It's far better than Dragon Ball Evolution let me assure you of that.

 

[soul_rune1984]

That poor sweet little snake. I'd like to beat that ***** to death with her shoe and see how she likes it.

Why? Because she say a giant snake in her room and her instincts told her to kill it? She preserved the body right after to give to since. I mean it sucks that she killed it, but the body itself provides just as much information about the mutation as it did when the thing was alive. So stop being so crude and read the article. The woman did nothing wrong except defend herself.


Hell, I'm surprised she had the balls to attack it

And I have yet to grow a tail

I did read the article. She should have captured it instead of just mindlessly killing the poor thing and no, the body itself does NOT provide all the information on the mutation, researchers couldn't observe movement or how and if the snake was able to use this claw. I'm just sick of hearing about people killing things without understanding or recognizing what they are.

 

[KaiRai]

That is absolutely insane......
are they sure it's not just a really unfortunate lizard?

 

[joe182]

Haha that's great. Nature never ceases to amaze and disgust me.

It's rather funny though, Genesis says that God cursed snakes to live without legs and crawl on their bellies. Does this mean that snakes are slithering back into His favour?

Haha.. Never thought of that.
Take THAT Christianity.

 

[Kedcom]

before we wreck the planet beyond all repair!

Sorry to say this but your up your onw B-hole on the we will distroy the world thing! Humans can destroy the world for life by using every nuke every made to blow it into a 1000000000000000000000000000 bits life might still survive on an astrode or somthing. Apart from that even with golbe warming and such we would only really kill our self and some % of life on the planet be it 60, 70 or 80 it dose not matter. At one point in the history of the world some say 99% of all life was killed (massive volcan eruption) but life made a come back so plase dont think the world will be lost if humans are dumb enough to kill them selfs .

Yeah I know, you're right. But when I do think about how we are destorying the planet I kinda think of it more in a selfish way... i.e. we're destroying OUR world. Ultimately life will *probably* go on no matter what damage we do to the planet.

I highly recommend you watch this little piece from George Carlin! I completely agree with him in some ways, but I also think we're messing things up for ourselves in many ways rather than for pandas, cockroaches, etc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw

 

[Azraellod]

aww... that's sad.

the footnote about double headed snakes was sort of interesting though. i thought that was just something that people made up.

 

[Disaster Button]

So what woman just killed of a new evolutionary species? What a *****.

 

[Redd]

Am I the only one that think that the snake is kind of like a pre-mature Deathclaw?

Do like Iron Maiden and RUN TO THE HILLS

Ah! Deathclaw and Iron Maiden! Bravo!

OT: Now, ehm. Seeing as I love..LOVE..reptiles I have to say this is extremely interesting to me. I'd like to know more about the mutation.

Also, if you think about it. If a snake grew four legs with claws, wouldn't it be a weird version of a dragon? Except for fire breathing or anything like that, just surprise attacks from the wall when they get pissy and escape the cage...

 

[ThreeWords]

That's awesome. I'm now going to trick children into thinking that snakes are actually abby crocodiles and they grow legs later on.

An excellent plan, which I shall copy shamelessly

Remember, copying is the greatest form of flattery

Edit: Er.. oops. Spelling corrected

 

[EMFCRACKSHOT]

Ahh, so thats where i left it.

 

[tsb247]

Looks like a vertebral HOX gene overexpression in the thoratic area.

If I remember correctly, aren't you a bio-chemist? What could cause a mutation like this? I'm curious.

 

[Hot'n'steamy]

Looks like a vertebral HOX gene overexpression in the thoratic area.

If I remember correctly, aren't you a bio-chemist? What could cause a mutation like this? I'm curious.

If it's a homeobox gene which it most likely is a number of thinks could cause a mutation like this. A little bit of background.

Homeobox genes are ubiquitous to all life on earth. If you imagine for a moment you body as distinct zones from head to tail e.g. Head, upper thorax/arms, abdomen, pelvic region, lower limbs (this is a gross oversimplification btw); HOX genes regulate the order in which these zones come (the anterio-posterior axis). Another very interesting thing about HOX genes is that they are "in order" in the genome. So if you read the genome from left to right (3' to 5') you would see the hox gene for the head, then the gene for the upper abdomen etc. etc. This is pretty unique in genetics, and people are still kinda confused onto why this is.

Homeobox genes are (typically) essential to produce a viable organism. If you delete them, the embryo patterns incorrectly during embryogenesis, and you end up with an inviable fetus. Mutations however, can and do occur; for instance Antennapedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antennapedia].

Snakes have a very specific HOX pattern. They have an over-expression of the hox genes responsible for producing thoracic segments. So instead of having a little ribcage, they have a HUGE ribcarge, that is their body. It is important to realise however that within their genome they retain the HOX genes responsible for producing the lower limbs; they're just not expressed. So the mutation was the expression of this HOX gene, most likely because of:

- a mutation in the HOX gene's promoter, responsible for the expression of a leg.
- the under/over expression of pair-rule [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair-rule_gene] or gap genes responsible for the expression of HOX genes.

The mutation could be caused by anything really. It could have been exposed to toxins, UV Radiation, X-Rays, ethidium bromide, oxygen radicals, anything. The DNA is damaged and will expressed differently. They just occur randomly and spontaneously sometimes.

Hope that answers your question

 

[RoboPenguin]

Um, guys... It has a beefy arm. I think we'll have to worry about burnination in the not to distant future.

 

[crypt-creature]

That poor sweet little snake. I'd like to beat that ***** to death with her shoe and see how she likes it.

Why? Because she say a giant snake in her room and her instincts told her to kill it? She preserved the body right after to give to since. I mean it sucks that she killed it, but the body itself provides just as much information about the mutation as it did when the thing was alive. So stop being so crude and read the article. The woman did nothing wrong except defend herself.


Hell, I'm surprised she had the balls to attack it

And I have yet to grow a tail

Giant snake?
That snake is rather small... 16 inches and the thickness of a middle finger? It's the size of my old Green Tree snake, it's not something to freak out about. Claw included.
It's not hard or that impressive to attack it.

If it were an obviously poisonous snake sure, take caution. As it stands, it doesn't exactly seem like it was actually deadly. Just a genetic oddity.