Skip to main content
Kent Academic Repository

All chromosomes great and small: 10 years on

Griffin, Darren K., Burt, David W. (2014) All chromosomes great and small: 10 years on. Chromosome Research, 22 (1). pp. 1-6. ISSN 0967-3849. (doi:10.1007/s10577-014-9413-0) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:41096)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10577-014-9413-0

Abstract

There are no two ways about it; the avian karyotype is unique. To someone who looks at cytogenetic preparations of birds a lot (and we do), an avian chromosome preparation is nearly as characteristic as a feather when identifying a member of the phylogenetic class Aves. It is not just the microchromosomes, and many animal groups have microchromosomes (lizards, turtles, snakes, etc., may have ~20 microchromosome pairs), it is the fact that there are so many of them (~30), and they are so small (often described as “dot shaped”) that set birds apart. It is somewhat difficult to keep count, but as far as we are aware, there are 1,000+ published avian karyotypes. The most comprehensive overview to date was the classic work of Christidis (1990) with 800 species, and there have been a few hundreds more since then. Almost without exception, however, all these studies have one thing in common: they are woefully incomplete. Most stop at somewhere between the first 5 and 10 pairs, identify the se

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1007/s10577-014-9413-0
Subjects: Q Science
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Natural Sciences > Biosciences
Depositing User: Susan Davies
Date Deposited: 21 May 2014 10:20 UTC
Last Modified: 17 Aug 2022 10:57 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/41096 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.