DETERMINING PLATYPUS RELATIONSHIPS

In the summer of 1990-91 the first captive breeding of platypus (Omith orhynchus anatinus) in 47 years, and only the second ever, occurred in a small resident population at Warrawong Sanctuary, South Australia. DNA fingerprinting and analyses employing the maternally inherited mit ochondrial genome have been used to determine family relationships wit hin this population Using hypervariable DNA sequences cloned from othe r species to probe blots of DNA from the Warrawong platypuses, individ ual-specific banding patterns have been observed that allow the identi fication of family relationships within the population. A novel method for detecting maternal relationships within platypus populations, bas ed on polymerase chain reaction analyses of the highly polymorphic mit ochondrial control region, is also presented.