I Hope that Gorilla was Worth It.

Reed A. Cartwright posted Entry 2966 on March 7, 2007 03:47 PM.
Trackback URL: http://www.pandasthumb.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.fcgi/2956

Over at The Loom, Carl Zimmer discusses some interesting research on the origin of crabs, not the tasty kind but the ichy-bitey kind.

Question of the Day: How Do You Get Crabs From A Gorilla?

The scientists set out to recover the evolutionary tree of pubic lice, just as they had done with head lice. They analyzed DNA from human head lice, human pubic lice, as well as other species from the same genera that live on chimpanzees and gorillas. They also analyzed DNA from lice that live on monkeys and on rodents so that they could get a better sense of how pubic lice had evolved from a common ancestor with other species. The scientists not only drew branches for each species, but also estimated when those branches split over the course of history.

Their conclusion, which they published today in BMC Biology, is just as striking as their earlier one about head lice. But it is hardly the same. We did not get pubic lice from other hominids. We got them from the ancestors of gorillas.

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Comment #164467

Posted by Sir_Toejam on March 7, 2007 7:36 PM (e)

uh, could someone remove the spam, please.

Comment #164483

Posted by Gary Hurd on March 8, 2007 12:17 AM (e)

That is funny, but I suspect that it will not hold/grasp/bite for very long.

Comment #164522

Posted by Dizzy on March 8, 2007 9:51 AM (e)

My educated, objective response to this article is: Ewwwww.

Seriously, though. Can you imagine being one of those researchers at a bar, being asked what you do, and having to answer, “I’m working on a research project studying crabs?”

Nice to hear that it’s not *necessarily* evidence of a man-beast love affair, though. So my hypothesis that that practice started in Kansas is not out the window…

Comment #164560

Posted by Zarquon on March 8, 2007 2:18 PM (e)

Gryptype-Thynne: Have a gorilla?

Seagoon: No thanks, I’m trying to give them up.

Comment #164563

Posted by Tracy P. Hamilton on March 8, 2007 2:50 PM (e)

Clearly there is an ID explanation. The designer designed designer crabs for each of the great apes. Let up appreciate such attention to detail.

Comment #164566

Posted by Henry J on March 8, 2007 3:06 PM (e)

The trackback misspelled “pubic”.

Oh, and PT’s spellchecker doesn’t recognize “trackback”. Or “PT’s”, for that matter.

Comment #164583

Posted by Dizzy on March 8, 2007 3:55 PM (e)

The trackback misspelled “pubic”.

No, the article clearly is talking about “public” lice, the kind of lice that are freely available to all taxpayers, not the kind you buy or develop for yourself.

Comment #164654

Posted by Henry J on March 8, 2007 8:58 PM (e)

Oh. Well, in that case disregard my comment. :)

Trackback: Guess where humans got crabs from?

Posted by Primatology.org on March 7, 2007 9:41 PM

The science blogosphere has been buzzing about new published research that has focused studying the origins of a sexually transmitted disease, crabs which also known as public lice. Before I talk about this paper I wanna thanks Carl Zimmer, who opened ...