Observatoire des droits humains (anglais seulement)

In most mammals, one gene determines sex. But 100 million years ago, platypuses and echidnas went their own way

(Version anglaise seulement)

par Linda Shearwin, Researcher, Comparative Genome Biology Laboratory, University of Adelaide
Frank Grützner, Professor, School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide

For decades, scientists have known that platypuses and echidnas – Australia’s unique egg-laying mammals – have another developmental quirk: they don’t use the same genetic toolkit as other mammals to develop male and female embryos.

What’s more, just how they do it has been a mystery. Until now.

In a recent study published in Genome Biology, our research team has found strong evidence that monotreme sex comes down to a single gene – one that’s much more like what we…

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