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Female Moles Grow Testicles to Fight Through Their Brutal Underground Existence:
If any animal understands the horrors of trench warfare, it has to be the mole. Faced with an enemy, there's no time for pleasantries. No place to hide. Aggression is all that matters.
To help them fight in this brutal world, evolution has granted the female mole a generous dose of 'roid rage' by tacking some testicles onto her ovaries – resulting in a unique bit of anatomy called an ovotestis.
[...] Lacking a Y chromosome makes it a lot harder for an embryo to kick off the chain of events that produce testes. So just how it happens in female moles, which have two X chromosomes instead of an X and Y, has long been a mystery.
[...] "We hypothesised that in moles, there are not only changes in the genes themselves, but particularly in the regulatory regions belonging to these genes," says geneticist Stefan Mundlos from the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics.
[...] Specifically they found a region involved with testicular development is flipped, adding extra code to a region that activates the pro-testicular growth factor gene FGF9.
They also found two extra copies of a gene that controls for androgen synthesis
"The triplication appends additional regulatory sequences to the gene – which ultimately leads to an increased production of male sex hormones in the ovotestes of female moles, especially more testosterone," says lead author, Francisca Martinez Real from the Institute for Medical Genetics and Human Genetics in Germany.
Journal Reference:
Francisca M. Real, Stefan A. Haas, Paolo Franchini, et al. The mole genome reveals regulatory rearrangements associated with adaptive intersexuality [$], Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz2582)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 11 2020, @10:37PM (3 children)
aka millenial rats.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 12 2020, @01:26AM
aka the LEA decoys at my previous employer.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 12 2020, @03:13AM
The idiots are getting closer to reality, one day they'll wake up and say "wow, every bad joke I made was true!"
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 12 2020, @03:30AM
Are evangelicals out there trying to kill the endowed moles?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 11 2020, @11:51PM
Well, humans aren't no damn monkeys. And Mother Nature ain't your mama! Now get back in there and put on some clothes!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Monday October 12 2020, @12:12AM (7 children)
The article then completely fails to explain this, so I went to Wikipedia, where I only found this:
Which does not explain why females need testes on their ovaries either. Unsatisfying.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Monday October 12 2020, @12:33AM (2 children)
Maybe the question should be the other way around. Living in the wild is so stressful and dangerous, why don't most wild animals turn to roid rage for help surviving? All the crazy things animals have evolved to do, to get that little extra edge.... Like, there's this Australian critter in which the males are so hyper all the time during mating season that the toll on their bodies, even if they win all their fights without serious injury, has them all dead within 2 years of reaching adulthood, their bodies wrecked from the stresses of their own hormones.
Ever seen a wild rabbit? They must be on the edge of nervous exhaustion all the time. Very jumpy and twitchy, never know when a hawk or a coyote is going to try to make a meal out of them. Caught a young one once, and tried to make a pet of it. It wouldn't eat or move. Two days later, afraid it would starve before it would trust the food we tried to give it, we let it go.
(Score: 3, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Monday October 12 2020, @01:31AM (1 child)
What I'm getting from that is that moles are rabbits that couldn't stand the stress and started living underground.
Smart move.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 12 2020, @01:38AM
incel rabbits?
(Score: 2) by r1348 on Monday October 12 2020, @01:08AM
Because predators.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Monday October 12 2020, @11:48PM (1 child)
the summary says the testes are there to make extra testosterone so the female becomes stronger and more aggressive. that helps them survive better - not sure what you're confused about here.
speaking of butch - does anyone notice how home depot is usually filled with butch manly fat lesbians who build houses, but sometimes a contractor polak shows up with his girlfriend who's dollied up like a hooker going to a nightclub? just wanted to set the record straight - he's not with a hooker. it's normal for eastern euro women to not leave the house till they look like a hooker, and doing that is a trait looked for by men - it shows the woman "takes care of herself." so don't look down on the contractor polak. he came here for a better life fixing your toilet, give him a break. just don't have him fix your toilet - it'll leak shitwater all over the pee mat. they're only good for painting walls, just like their women are only good for sticking a dick into, before they hit 30.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday October 13 2020, @12:05AM
Wow.
Never miss an opportunity to be an arsehole I suppose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 14 2020, @05:42PM
And female hyenas are in a league of their own.
(Score: 4, Funny) by krishnoid on Monday October 12 2020, @01:40AM
"Gophers invading your homes? Pfft, just grow a pair."
...
"Done."
"Um ... I didn't really have a follow-up to that."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 12 2020, @02:37AM
And there was new DNA.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Monday October 12 2020, @08:41AM (2 children)
Hmm, let's do a quick Googling. First line of the Wikipedia article:
Glad to see these guys did their research thoroughly
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 12 2020, @04:27PM (1 child)
Ovotestes are unique anatomy, distinct from ova and testes. Moles are not unique in having them - though afaik they're unique among mammals in that.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday October 12 2020, @04:29PM
Are they unique, or do other things have them? Pick one.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"