GrrlScientist is an evolutionary biologist, ornithologist, aviculturist, birder and freelance science and nature writer. A native of the Pacific Northwest, she relocated from Seattle to NYC with her parrots after earning a BS in Microbiology (emphasis in Virology) and PhD in Zoology (Ornithology) from the University of Washington. In NYC, she was the Chapman Postdoctoral Fellow at the American Museum of Natural History for two years, pursuing part of her "dream" research project by reconstructing a molecular phylogeny of the parrots of the South Pacific islands. GrrlScientist and her five parrots are currently relocating to Germany, where she will continue writing her blog while also writing a book and learning German. (Meanwhile, her parrots will continue to nibble on her extensive personal library.) If you appreciate GrrlScientist's writing, you can help pay her living expenses by hiring her to "blog" your conference, speak at your club or write articles for your publication (or by clicking on the Paypal button below). If you read an essay on this blog that you especially enjoyed, please nominate it for inclusion in 
Not long ago in the country of Colombia, a chicken was born with webbed feet, similar to a duck (pictured).
As some people suggested, this bird isn't the result of a duck sneaking into the hen house because experts say it's impossible for the two species to interbreed. Instead, experts said the bird is a genetic mutation.
My guess is that the developmental genes that were supposed to cause programmed cell death for those cells located between the bird's toes did not activate and do their job properly. As a result, those cells survived, leaving the bird with skin remaining between its toes. This is a very basic developmental program that also leaves humans with fingers instead of webbed hands. I wonder what other genetic defects this bird might be harboring since programed cell death is basic to development.
The bird's owner, who has raised chickens his entire life, said he's never seen the deformity before.
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Cited story and image source.
tags: chicken with webbed feet
Comments
Your story with this is very interesting. What can be done to investigate what makes this ducken tick? Turning various genes on and off has interesting possibilities which I don't need to tell you.
Christopher
Posted by: Christopher Hobe Morrison | January 31, 2007 6:46 PM
This is a simple variation in apoptotic triggering between the phalanges. It happens when the expression of retinoic acid fails to occur, thus not reducing the interdigital cell death. Similar things also occur in grebes, which form "lobes" between the digits. If you like, I have some cool images somewhere, stolen from a paper I found a while back.
Posted by: John Wilkins | January 31, 2007 7:58 PM
I meant "thus reducing" not "thus not reducing". Damned low blood sugar!
Also, see these links
http://www.nature.com/ncb/journal/v1/n2/full/ncb0699_125.html
http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/90/1/208
Posted by: John Wilkins | January 31, 2007 8:00 PM
Evolution before your very eyes. Truly a wondrous sight...humbling. In the right niche, this mutation, if passed on to this bird's offspring, would result in a new form of chicken...maybe a new species one day.
"What hath God wrought?"
Clapping
Chardyspal
Posted by: Chardyspal | January 31, 2007 10:05 PM
I forgot to mention:
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because it had webbed feet and was following the ducks.
Posted by: Christopher Hobe Morrison | May 27, 2009 9:21 PM