My Contribution to “Talk Like a Pirate Day”

by Dave Schuler on September 19, 2012

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… read them below or add one }

Icepick September 19, 2012 at 11:13 am

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

Janis Gore September 19, 2012 at 6:28 pm

All I have to say is “Aarghhhhh”!

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