Each animal has its own way of moving, some walking, some crawling, and some jumping, but no matter how the animals travel, they all need the whole body to coordinate the process.
This is a very complicated process. For example, humans walk on two legs, but the most obvious point is that their hands need to cooperate with swing. Some people with poor physical coordination skills will have the same hands and feet.
If you don’t swing your arms or “same hands and feet”, you cannot move quickly. In fact, this inconsistency also exists in the animal world, and even directly leads to animals changing a way of travel.
The more famous pigeons are somersaults (I have written before). They can't fly, they only do somersaults on the ground. They were strange varieties cultivated for people's entertainment.
However, today we are talking about a strange rabbit, which does not jump, but instead walks upside down, like playing acrobatics.
first described it in 1935, and it was not until early 2021 that people clearly knew the mechanism of its inducing behavior, and in the past 85 years, scientists have been puzzled.
About the handstand rabbit
A normal rabbit will slowly move its limbs when it grazed in the grass, but when frightened, it will run away in a jumping way because it will be faster.
But today's protagonists lost this "skill package". When they want to escape quickly, they will lift their hind legs high, and then walk for a long distance, just like our handstand.
rabbits are called "Alfort Jumper". I don't know why it has the word "jump" in its name. They are a true and unstoppable rabbit breed.
"Alfort Jumper" is no different from an ordinary rabbit when it moves slowly, but it does not jump when it wants to move quickly.
In 1935, French veterinarian Etienne Lettered described the behavior of these rabbits for the first time, and he also bred them for the first time.
In addition, French veterinarians gave this rabbit a French name - "Sotur d'Alfort", which is widely known by this name.
Although the rabbit's behavior is described at this time, it is unknown why it does this, because it is difficult to find their differences from anatomy .
However, now people have unveiled its mystery, all of which is attributed to its genetic mutations, which makes it unable to move like a normal rabbit.
Genetic mutation in rabbits
On March 25, 2021, in the journal Public Library of Science Genetics, researchers reported their discovery that the jumping rabbit was mutated because a gene called RORB was mutated. Mutations in the
RORB gene changed the wrong gene instructions used by spinal cord nerve cells to make proteins, and ultimately caused the cell to lack RORB protein.
Spinal cord nerve cells help coordinate the movement of the body's limbs by transmitting neural signals. When it lacks RORB protein, rabbits will be unable to coordinate the movement of their hind limbs, thus limiting its jump.
The main jumping animals are now in addition to rabbits, and the more famous ones are kangaroo , as well as some other rodents. Interestingly, the RORB gene is the key to all these jumping animals being able to jump.
Researchers found that when the RORB gene in rodents mutated, it also showed an inverted behavior, and I don’t know what happens when the kangaroo jumps to a handstand (no one has tested it). This mutation in the rabbit seems quite novel to us, but for rabbits, it is a genetic disease. The rabbit with this genetic disease is obviously unable to survive in the wild due to its extremely inconsistent limbs.
Before, we were indeed a bit pathological to cultivate this kind of rabbit for entertainment, because this genetic disease does not only affect coordination, it may affect the entire rabbit.
But now because of this kind of rabbit, we are likely to open the secret of animal motility.
In fact, this study did not explain how the RORB gene makes rabbits stand upside down and the rabbits lose coordination. It can have multiple choices, but why it is stand upside down? No one knows at present.
If you fully figure out the secret of rabbit movement, it can help researchers learn more about how spinal cord works.
Finally, we can also learn more about the basics of humans and all animals moving, which is an integral part of the robotics field.
