r/interestingasfuck • u/Significant_Snow_718 • 29d ago

/r/all Chick with genetic defect

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u/Cat_Peach_Pits 29d ago

Far more likely to be conjoined than a HOX error.

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u/michael-65536 29d ago

How?

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u/Cat_Peach_Pits 29d ago

HOX genes are more about body plans, so like, if the chick had legs where it's eyes would be, Id lean toward HOX. This chick looks like it has a non-functional set of legs stuck on the back of it, which would make me lean toward a conjoined embryo.

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u/michael-65536 29d ago

Wouldn't those, and the front legs, be wings though? Conjoined twins are usually symmetrical across the point of embryonic axis fission.

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u/Cat_Peach_Pits 29d ago

You can kind of see the wings on the front chick. Also the 2nd pair are on backward, like a butt-to-butt fusion. Im not saying anything definitive here because the pictures arent great, and I havent worked with HOX for like....17 years. So take this with a grain of salt.

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u/michael-65536 29d ago

Hmm, having trouble seeing it.

Possibly it's neither. Or both. Or I don't know what chicks look like.

My assumption was that both the legs and wings were activated in both segments, otherwise where's the extra head?

But then maybe it's more like a parasitic twin than a symmetrically conjoined one, and the other twin's head didn't develop.

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u/Cat_Peach_Pits 29d ago

But then maybe it's more like a parasitic twin than a symmetrically conjoined one, and the other twin's head didn't develop.

This is what I was saying, maybe I should have said parasitic to be clearer.