08-11-2008, 02:56 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Mice migrated out of India :-)
>From Steve Jones, "Darwin's Ghost" :
<b>"The center of genetic diversity of the world's mice is in Pakistan and India. </b>Mus musculus {the Swedish mouse} and Mus domesticus {the American, West European and Australian mouse } began their journey there, in a common homeland and with a shared pool of genes. Their ancestors traveled in man's wake, in separate waves north and south around the icy Alps as farmers move west. As they went, they evolved, until, at last, when the circle was closed and the mice met, each had changed enough to render them incompatible..."
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The on-line book "Mouse Genetics"
http://www.princeton.edu/~lsilver/book/MG1.html
has the advent of the mouse in the Middle East :
This dawn occurred at the end of the last ice age, some 10,000 years ago, across a region retrospectively called the Fertile Crescent that extends from modern-day Israel up through Lebanon and Syria and curves back down through Iraq toward the Persian Gulf (figure 1.2). It was in this region at this time â known as the neolithic transition â that tribes of nomadic hunters and gatherers began to cultivate plants and domesticate animals as a means for sustenance (Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza, 1984). Farming eliminated the need for constant migration and brought about the formation of villages and the construction of permanent shelters for both people and their livestock. With the seasonal planting of crops, families needed to store dry food, in the form of grain, for both themselves and their animals. With food reserves in granaries and cupboards, the house mouse began its long interwoven history with humankind.
<b>The ancestors of the house mouse, who were concentrated in the steppes of present-day Pakistan at that time (figure 1.2), </b>had been living happily oblivious to people for eons, but suddenly (in terms of evolutionary time), migrants to the new Neolithic villages found mouse paradise in the form of a secure shelter with unlimited food (Auffray et al., 1990). ......
When people wandered out from the Middle East in search of new lands to cultivate, mice followed as stowaways within the vehicles used to carry household belongings. Later, they would travel with ship-borne merchants going to and from distant lands.
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Arun Gupta<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
>From Steve Jones, "Darwin's Ghost" :
<b>"The center of genetic diversity of the world's mice is in Pakistan and India. </b>Mus musculus {the Swedish mouse} and Mus domesticus {the American, West European and Australian mouse } began their journey there, in a common homeland and with a shared pool of genes. Their ancestors traveled in man's wake, in separate waves north and south around the icy Alps as farmers move west. As they went, they evolved, until, at last, when the circle was closed and the mice met, each had changed enough to render them incompatible..."
---
The on-line book "Mouse Genetics"
http://www.princeton.edu/~lsilver/book/MG1.html
has the advent of the mouse in the Middle East :
This dawn occurred at the end of the last ice age, some 10,000 years ago, across a region retrospectively called the Fertile Crescent that extends from modern-day Israel up through Lebanon and Syria and curves back down through Iraq toward the Persian Gulf (figure 1.2). It was in this region at this time â known as the neolithic transition â that tribes of nomadic hunters and gatherers began to cultivate plants and domesticate animals as a means for sustenance (Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza, 1984). Farming eliminated the need for constant migration and brought about the formation of villages and the construction of permanent shelters for both people and their livestock. With the seasonal planting of crops, families needed to store dry food, in the form of grain, for both themselves and their animals. With food reserves in granaries and cupboards, the house mouse began its long interwoven history with humankind.
<b>The ancestors of the house mouse, who were concentrated in the steppes of present-day Pakistan at that time (figure 1.2), </b>had been living happily oblivious to people for eons, but suddenly (in terms of evolutionary time), migrants to the new Neolithic villages found mouse paradise in the form of a secure shelter with unlimited food (Auffray et al., 1990). ......
When people wandered out from the Middle East in search of new lands to cultivate, mice followed as stowaways within the vehicles used to carry household belongings. Later, they would travel with ship-borne merchants going to and from distant lands.
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Arun Gupta<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->