People say “When pigs fly” to describe the impossible. But even if most mammals are landlubbers, the ability to glide or fly has evolved again and again during mammalian evolution, in species ranging from bats to flying squirrels. How did that come about? In a study published in the journal Nature this week, a team of researchers led by Princeton University and Baylor College of Medicine explains the genomic and developmental basis of the patagium, the thin skin membrane that allows some mammalian species to soar through the air.
“We don’t quite understand how novel traits and adaptations originate from a molecular and genetic perspective. We wanted to investigate how an evolutionary novelty arises,” said co-corresponding author Dr. Ricardo Mallarino, assistant professor of molecular biology at Princeton.
