Dogs are one of the most popular pets, and huskies are extremely famous in the pet dog circle, of course, basically not very good reputation, the most typical temperament is "silly in the silly", often accompanied by the behavior of "demolishing the family", but also because the husky appearance is beautiful, there are double layers and very thick coats, the personality is docile and not easy to attack humans and animals, so it is widely raised by people around the world.
I don't know if you have noticed that some huskies have blue eyes, of course, in addition to this, there are also brown, and even have double pupils of different colors.
Blue-eyed husky
Blue eyes, is the symbol of the husky in the northwest of Siberia, simply put, is the husky living in high latitudes, most of its eyes are blue, and the low latitude life of the husky, did not find this phenomenon, it is not known that its blue eyes, is more conducive to living in high latitudes, but since most of the populations have shown this feature, then it is very likely to be related to the environment, just as most carnivores will evolve environmental protection colors, in order to "survival of the fittest".
Blue-eyed tricolor Australian Shepherd
The blue eyes of dogs are a very interesting topic in the scientific community, many researchers have been committed to this topic, we know that some dog eyes, may be related to hair, such as some Australian Shepherd eyes are blue, related to their mountain bird color markings, and the study found that the Husky born in Siberia, the mystery of its blue eyes is not related to hair, but has a more complex reason, such as the relationship between genes. Scientists speculate that some mutation caused its eyes to turn blue.
To this end, a private company did a study, the general process is to collect their own Wang Xingren DNA data from the vast number of "shovelers" in the form of the Internet, this research has two prerequisites:
One is how do these "shovelers" get their dogs' DNA data?
Second, why did they participate in this online solicitation?
First of all, the first premise is that because the owners of these dogs have spontaneously bought DNA kits before to identify the breed of their dogs and detect whether there are any health risks, so the "shovelers" have learned the DNA data of their own Wang Xingren.
Huskies
The second premise, of course, is to give the "shoveling officer" certain benefits, such as being able to share photos of their dogs with the majority of netizens online, which is indeed a big temptation for the "shoveling officer", because the photos of their own dogs can be spread online and recognized, and in the psychology of the owner, they can meet a certain vanity.
People were mailing DNA samples to fixed locations and filling in basic information about their dogs online, a long-running survey that allowed researchers to obtain a total of 6,070 samples.
Photo credit: Aleksey Gnilenkov
After a lot of research and testing, people finally locked their eyes on the canine's chromosome 10 and 18, and a mutant gene near a gene called ALX4 on chromosome 18 aroused interest, and researchers believe that it was this mutant gene that made husky's eyes turn blue.
Of course, gene expression is a very complex process, and just like the "butterfly effect", any small change at the gene level may eventually lead to two very different phenomena.
The mystery of the husky's blue eyes
Just like dominoes, when one of them falls, there will be a chain reaction, one gene can affect the expression of another gene, it can not affect, it can also affect each other, and even one gene can affect the expression of hundreds of genes.
From the perspective of genetic research, the difference between the brown eyes and blue eyes of dogs, the problem appears in a mutation upstream of the ALX4 gene, the mutation of this gene of the husky, the final impact is to reduce the synthesis of melanin in the eyes, the lack of pigment makes the eyes appear light blue when reflecting light.
A blue-eyed Pembroke Wells Corgi
In fact, about the color of the eye, in most people's cognition will often make a mistake, such as thinking that it is blue, but in fact, the world has no blue pigment, the reason why the husky's eyes appear blue, because the way light enters and reflects, making us look blue, just like we see the lake is blue, and the water itself is colorless.
There are many dogs with blue eyes in the world, such as some border collies, Pembroke Wells Corgis, etc., and their eyes are blue.
Blue-eyed Border Collie
But the husky's blue eyes and these dogs' blue eyes are not the same, the general dog eyes appear blue, mainly the expression of recessive genes, and husky blue eyes, is the expression of dominant genes, in the simplest terms, is the husky blue eyes are more common, and other dogs want to get blue eyes is not easy, even several generations to produce a blue eye dog. When this law is known, it is undoubtedly very helpful for people's selection and breeding work.
Blue-eyed husky
Many people think that the significance of this study is not very large, and what can they do if they know how husky blue eyes come about? In fact, on the contrary, the pet market is on the rise, and the inheritance and transmission of many phenotypic traits in domestic dogs are still undiscovered, so it is of great significance for the study of husky blue eyes, and it is a great progress for us to understand dogs.
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