Karyotypic kinship between the blue fox ( Alopex lagopus Linn.) and the silver fox ( Vulpes fulva Desm.)

• Published in: Cytogenetic and Genome Research
• Main Authors: Yoshida, M.A., Takagi, N., Sasaki, M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: S. Karger AG 1983
• Subjects: Alopex lagopus
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000131865; https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/131865

A karyotypic comparison between the blue fox and the silver fox revealed conservation of the chromosome arm as a unit, except for large heterochromatic blocks in 10 pairs of blue fox chromosomes and the complete absence of a common metacentric autosomal pair. This finding seems to indicate that their karyotypes evolved from a common ancestral karyotype, characterized by 70–76 acrocentric autosomes, mainly through a series of independent centric fusions.