Atta girl
Massive Horizontal Gene Transfer in Bdelloid Rotifers: Horizontal gene transfer in metazoans has been documented in only a few species and is usually associated with endosymbiosis or parasitism. By contrast, in bdelloid rotifers we found many genes that appear to have originated in bacteria, fungi, and plants, concentrated in telomeric regions along with diverse mobile genetic elements. Some of the foreign genes were intact and transcribed. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/320/5880/1210
...Bdelloids may pick up genes during dry spells when the spinsters shrivel up for months or years at a time. In their dehydrated state, cells rupture and genes may break apart. When water returns, the rotifers miraculously piece themselves back together. Other rotifer or non-rotifer genes found in the vicinity may be incorporated into the bdelloid’s chromosomes.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/32716/title/Not_so_prudish_after_all
So that's what they are going... Smart, ladies. Who needs sex if you can do that?
PS: Sexual reproduction in the bdelloids ceased 80 Mya: there are no males, and females reproduce by parthenogenesis. They do great without sex; they occupy every freshwater habitat on every continent.
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2007101201
http://harvardmagazine.com/2000/11/an-evolutionary-scandal.html
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=365675
...Bdelloids may pick up genes during dry spells when the spinsters shrivel up for months or years at a time. In their dehydrated state, cells rupture and genes may break apart. When water returns, the rotifers miraculously piece themselves back together. Other rotifer or non-rotifer genes found in the vicinity may be incorporated into the bdelloid’s chromosomes.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/32716/title/Not_so_prudish_after_all
So that's what they are going... Smart, ladies. Who needs sex if you can do that?
PS: Sexual reproduction in the bdelloids ceased 80 Mya: there are no males, and females reproduce by parthenogenesis. They do great without sex; they occupy every freshwater habitat on every continent.
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2007101201
http://harvardmagazine.com/2000/11/an-evolutionary-scandal.html
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=365675