Mouse tail opens, shuts global insurance case
By Virginia Hughes | December 23, 2010 | 6 Comments
A container full of sterile goods left Eastern China one day and ended up, four months later, in the Netherlands. As unpackers were rummaging through packing material, they turned up a tiny mummified mouse. The goods, evidently, were not sterile.
They were insured, though, and the insurance company needed to figure out who was to blame. Did the vermin board in China, or the Netherlands?
The corpse went to the Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity Naturalis for a taxonomical work-up. The company hoped that by identifying the type of mouse, scientists could pinpoint where it came from.
Researchers determined, based on anatomy, that the critter was an adolescent wood or field mouse from the Apodemus genus. But that didn’t really help: two species of Apodemus scurry through the Netherlands, and two other Apodemus species are native to Eastern China.
Luckily, the geographical boundaries of the Chinese species and the Dutch species do not overlap. So, the team reasoned, if they could identify this specimen’s species, they could solve the mystery.
This required a genetic screening. From browsing online gene databases, D.S.J. Groenenberg and R.W.R.J. Dekker discovered that analyzing the DNA-letter sequence of just one gene—Cytochrome B—would allow them to distinguish between these four species of Apodemus. So the researchers pulled the mouse out of the freezer and snipped off a 4-millimeter bit of its tail.
The extracted DNA betrayed the creature’s identity: it was Apodemus sylvaticus, a long-tailed wood mouse. This species spans a huge geographic range—as far east as Nepal, as far south as North Africa, as far west as Ireland and as far north as Sweden. But A. sylvaticus has never roamed Eastern China. The Dutch were to blame.
**
This work (cutely named “A mouse’s tail: How to settle an insurance dispute“) was published online 17 December in Forensic Science International.
Photo by jkonig, via Flickr
Comments
6 Responses to “Mouse tail opens, shuts global insurance case”
What’s that quote?
Our Readers
What’s on the Banner?
Highly Recommended!
The cutting-edge account of the latest science of autism by Temple Grandin and LWONer Richard Panek Order now!
Award-winning science writers (including 3 LWONians and 5 LWON guest posters) with 300 years of combined experience tell you everything they know about the craft, culture & commerce of the profession. Order now!
Blogroll
- Bad Astronomy
- Bioephemera
- Centauri Dreams
- Cocktail Party Physics
- Cosmic Variance
- Deep-sea News
- Digging the Dirt
- Ecogirl & Cosmoboy
- Ecotone
- Elfshot: Sticks and Stone
- Generation Anthropocene
- Laelaps
- NeuroTribes
- Not Exactly Rocket Science
- Only Human
- Rogue Classicism
- Speakeasy Science
- Spotty Dog
- Surprising Science
- The Loom
- The Sieve
- Tooth and Claw
- Universe Today
- Worldwatch Blogs
December 23rd, 2010 @ 2:59 pm
[...] Mouse tail opens, shuts global insurance case : The Last Word On … [...]
December 23rd, 2010 @ 4:43 pm
[...] How could one dead mouse solve an international insurance dispute? Go find out over at The Last Word on Nothing. [...]
December 23rd, 2010 @ 6:00 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bora Zivkovic. Bora Zivkovic said: Mouse tail opens, shuts global insurance case http://bit.ly/eob1LN [...]
December 23rd, 2010 @ 11:48 pm
[...] Mouse tail opens, shuts global insurance case [...]
March 22nd, 2011 @ 6:38 am
[...] corpse in Napoleon’s tomb really is Napoleon. Then there was the team that screened DNA from a mouse’s tail to solve an international insurance dispute. And now I’ve learned that DNA tests could help save [...]
March 22nd, 2011 @ 9:16 am
[...] in Napoleon’s tomb really is Napoleon. Then there was the team that screened DNA from a mouse’s tail to solve an international insurance dispute. And now I’ve learned that DNA tests could help [...]