Double Bootie

[cacoseraph]

Sorry, Didnt mean to cause a sh*t storm,

nah

go look at the utter nonsense that gets posted about hybriding or vert feeding. this is barely even an Excretory Spring Shower

 

[beetleman]

lets see....back to that t w/ double butt I LIKE IT!!

 

[LadySharon]

ok ... after all the "lets define the word mutant" talk.... I have a hopefully simple (yeah right) question....

Is it even POSSIBLE to have identical twins with spiders? That is... two spiders in the same egg. I THINK it's possible with reptiles but am not sure about anything lower then that.

Have any of you breeders who routinely watch "eggs with legs" see a larger egg or an egg with many more legs then their should be?

with 1000s of slings ... this should happen fairly often. (though we may not observe it and I mean a full seperation into two spiders)

- Sharon

 

[AnimalMother]

the spider was probably from chernobyl

 

[DrAce]

ok ... after all the "lets define the word mutant" talk.... I have a hopefully simple (yeah right) question....

Is it even POSSIBLE to have identical twins with spiders? That is... two spiders in the same egg. I THINK it's possible with reptiles but am not sure about anything lower then that.

Have any of you breeders who routinely watch "eggs with legs" see a larger egg or an egg with many more legs then their should be?

with 1000s of slings ... this should happen fairly often. (though we may not observe it and I mean a full seperation into two spiders)

- Sharon

There is a good explination why this may/may not occur.

I can see no reason why, biologically, there cannot be identical twinning of spiders - theoretically. However...

Since both embryos would be feeding off a single yolk sac, I doubt that an identical twin situation would be viable. But I just don't know enough about spider embryology to be able to give you that answer.

Certainly they would undergo the same processes which CAN lead to identical twins, but I don't think they would split properly - leading to an unviable embryo and a dead foetus.

the spider was probably from chernobyl

I think that's actually pretty offensive to the Russian colleague who posted that article. Chernobyl had more effect on Scotland than it had on many parts of Russia (much of the particulate fallout dropped down about there), but I don't know you'd be making those statements about Chernobyl.

Also, we've just been talking about the difference between being 'deformed' and being 'genetically mutated'. Chernobyl leads to mutations. Radiation damages DNA by hydrolysing the phosphate-sugar backbone leading to self-correcting DNA editing to remove areas and lead to problems (occasionally swapping regions of chromosomes too, but that's even more rare). It is highly unlikely that this is in effect here. There is NO increase in conjoint-twinning in the Ukraine or anywhere affected by Chernobyl radiation. This is almost certainly NOT a mutation. Were it's reproductive bits in tact (it seems to be twinned in that area, so it's not guaranteed) then there is a very good chance that it's offspring would be normal.

 

[DrAce]

O.K. maybe I should have looked at the link first. It appeares to be be more than one sp. of T. The fact that it's not just one sp., maybe we are seeing more evidence of what happens after a nuclear reactor accident. If people are showing signs of mutations years later, why not wildlife?

The effects of Chernobyl - which I guess you are eluding to - are not particularly clear. The WHO and IAEA reports on the area actually don't show a great deal. There appers to NOT be a great increase in the rates of birth defects, HOWEVER (because I know no-one is going to read on) the TYPES of defects HAVE changed.

There have not been any particularly good explainations of this so far - but then I've stopped keeping up with the reports.

Again, however, conjoint twinning is NOT one of the observed effects.