Who has more genes: Water flea or human?
Posted by staff / February 3, 2011
Weird but true, the animal with the most genes—about 31,000—is the water flea, a near-microscopic freshwater crustacean. By comparison, humans have about 23,000 genes. Scientists have studied the water flea for centuries because of its importance in aquatic food webs and for its responses to environmental stress.
The water flea, or Daphnia pulex, is the first crustacean to have its genome sequenced. An international network of researchers report their findings in the journal Science. The scientists learned that of all sequenced invertebrate genomes so far, Daphnia shares the most genes with humans.
There was another surpise. “More than one-third of Daphnia’s genes are undocumented in any other organism—in other words, they are completely new to science,” says Don Gilbert, coauthor and biologist at Indiana University.
Full story at Futurity.
Photo credit: Paul D.N. Hebert, University of Guelph (top)/Jan Michels and Christian-Albrechts, Universitaet zu Kiel (bottom)
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