My Contribution to “Talk Like a Pirate Day”

Dogs, like most mammals, have the ability to synthesize Vitamin C in their livers. That means that under normal circumstances dogs do not need to supplement their diets with Vitamin C. Since scurvy is caused by a deficiency in Vitamin C and dogs synthesize enough on their own to avoid it, “scurvy dogs” would be very rare, indeed.

Among mammals only simians (which includes us), bats, and cavidae (Guinea pigs and capybaras) lack the gene that produces the protein that enables them to produce ascorbate on their own. In us that gene has become a pseudogene. It’s there but it doesn’t produce anything.

So, “scurvy dogs”, no. Now, “scurvy bats” and you’d have something. Somehow that doesn’t have much ring to it.

2 comments… add one
  • Okay, so count that gene as the first one that should be incorporated into the H. Sapien genome via genetic engineering.

  • All I have to say is “Aarghhhhh”!

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