Mule Gives Birth!

Excerpt from an
article at KJCT8News

” High up on the Mesa, in the Grand Valley town of Collbran, a tiny four legged wonder sticks close to its mothers side. It is the latest addition to the ranch owned by Larry and Laura Amos. But this is a once-in-a-million, genetically impossible occurrence of a mule giving birth.

The mother of this beauty, is named Kate. She is a mule. Mules are a hybrid of two species, a female horse and a male donkey. Breeding the two results in a species with 63 chromosomes. A horse has 64, a donkey has 62. A mule can’t reproduce because you need an even number of chromosomes to divide into pairs.

This little wonder came into the world in late April to the shock of the Amos family. Doting mother Kate has no idea what she has accomplished.”

Read more of this article here.

Read the original story at Mules and More.

Thanks to flamencohorse for the scoop!

DNA - Bats and Horses are Closely Related

New Scientist Breaking News - Bats and horses get strangely chummy

* 09:45 25 June 2006
* From New Scientist Print Edition

“You could call it a batty idea, but bats seem to be more closely related to horses than cows are.Once thought to belong to the same group as primates, bats actually belong to the super-order Pegasoferae, which contains horses, cats and dogs, cows, whales and hedgehogs. Within this group, bats were thought to be only distant cousins to horses, but DNA analysis suggests that only cats and dogs are more closely related to horses than bats are (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0603797103).” More…