What Is So Strange About The Genetics Of The Vole?

Quite a few things! There are many different species of vole but this rodent has been largely ignored - until recently. In 2006, a team of scientists published their study of about 60 species of vole. The scientists focused on the voles' genes and were surprised to find that the vole is evolving about 100 times faster than most mammals. Why, they don't know…

The team also found that different species of vole have different numbers of chromosomes ~ between 17 and 65. This is very unusual ~ different species of the same animal usually all have the same chromosome complement. Also odd was the fact that, in one species, the male and female have different numbers of chromosomes. This is virtually unheard of in mammals.

There were many more genetic conundrums ~ some that will need years of research to understand. One puzzle is likely to remain though ~ despite all this variation, all voles look exactly the same.