• Question: Will the animals be treated while the sequencing takes place?

    Asked by 11butchere to Spot Fly, Scottish Wildcat, Scaly Cricket, Glow Worm, European Flat Oyster, Eurasian Otter, Barbastelle Bat on 8 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Scottish Wildcat

      Scottish Wildcat answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      Because the complete sequence of DNA is present in almost every cell in an organism, the whole animal doesn’t need to be there for sequencing, just a sample. We can extract DNA from lots of different sample types that don’t hurt the animal, e.g. blood, hair, even poo! The sample type you choose will often depend on the animal you’re investigating, and how much or type of DNA you want to sequence.

    • Photo: Glow Worm

      Glow Worm answered on 9 Nov 2017:

      Adult glow-worms only live for a few days, so sequencing could be done on one that has died naturally.

    • Photo: Eurasian Otter

      Eurasian Otter answered on 9 Nov 2017:

      Will will not need to hold any animal while the sequencing is taking place.

      All we need to sequence the otter genome is a blood sample or a small tissue sample. Will might use and sequence DNA from a blood sample from a live otter. Alternatively, we might use a tissue sample from an otter that was recently killed by a car when the otter was crossing the road.

      Actually, we have samples from incredibly many otters that get killed every year in traffic in the UK.

    • Photo: Scaly Cricket

      Scaly Cricket answered on 13 Nov 2017:

      We have frozen specimens of scaly crickets that have died of age, so there will be no need to take samples from living animals.

    • Photo: Barbastelle Bat

      Barbastelle Bat answered on 14 Nov 2017:

      We will not need to hold any barbastelle bats in captivity. Blood and wing skin biopsy samples have already been collected from bats in the wild.

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