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Mus Musculus 2.0
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Mus Musculus 2.0
Considering mouse ages, reproduction frequency (I'm estimating about 600 generations) and quantity of offspring... considering that really we are only talking about changing size (one would guess is a relatively simple variation... they haven't grown wings after all)...
sounds about right.
When they make it back to England and start feasting on your minature poodles, then I'd start getting worried.
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Mus Musculus 2.0
But as a terrible consequence of the first whalers making landfall there 150 years ago, Gough has become the stage for one of nature's great horror shows. Mice stowed away on the whaling boats jumped ship and have since multiplied to 700,000 or more on an island of about 25 square miles.
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Mus Musculus 2.0
Island gigantism/dwarfism is pretty much the most common and well understood pattern in all of evolution. Without natural predators and with limited food supplies, animals introduced to an island tend to converge on an optimal surface area/volume ratio. I'd say the most interesting thing about this is the conversion to a carnivorous diet (I suspect it's actually omnivorous). I'd be very interested to know what if any physiological changes have accompanied/driven that.
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