Study on Bizarre Rodent Genetics Solves a Mystery and Reveals Another
Published:26 May2021    Source:San Francisco State University

Open up Scott Roy's Twitter bio and you'll see a simple but revealing sentence: "The more I learn the more I'm confused." Now the rest of the scientific world can share in his confusion. The San Francisco State University associate professor of Biology's most recent research catalogues a strange and confounding system of genes in a tiny rodent that scientists have ignored for decades.

 
The owner of those chromosomes is the creeping vole, a burrowing rodent native to the Pacific Northwest. Scientists have known since the '60s that the species had some odd genes: Their number of X and Y chromosomes (bundles of DNA that play a large role in determining sex) is off from what's expected in male and female mammals.