"In the 4th book of the Twilight Saga (Breaking Dawn), Carlisle reveals that vampires have 25 chromosomes and werewolves have 24."
Luckily I looked this up and didn't have to troll for it.
So humans have 23, werewolves have 24 and vampires have 25 chromosomes.
Sire/Dam mismatched chromosomal counts will generally get you sterile offspring (think horse/donkey/mule). Very rarely a mule mare will be fertile, but the males never are. So I guess Meyer's thought (assuming thought was involved) was that Nessie has 24 chromosomes which makes her a perfect match for Jacob (also blessed with 24 chromosomes). However, at least one of Jacob's and Nessie's chromosomes do not match each other - so would most likely result in their offspring having 23 matched chromosomes and 2 unmatched chromosomes. And since we know that werewolves only imprint on mates who have a good chance of having baby werewolves, then there has to be some way that they match up.
Unmatched chromosomes are generally bad. Bad bad bad for you.
Unless they are XXY males or XXX females, in which case you are pretty much normal. I wouldn't think that the be extra sex chromosomes that Jacob and Edward would be sporting would be sex chromosomes, though. Unless, lets see, that would make werewolfism a sex linked characteristic and only males would inherit it (if on Y chromosome) but we know there is at least one female werewolf so that is out - if you have a Y you are a boy, no ifs ands or buts (HI Inverarity *waves*).
So it would have to be a recessive gene on the X chromosome, in which case you could have a female werewolf with double (no, triple) recessives. So Nessie would have to get her X chromosome from Bella, and lets say, two X's from Edward (because he has so much to give her - including extra genetic material). Then Nessie would have to be a XXX. So then Jacob (XXY) and Nessie would have kids who would be
... well I'll be damned.. that might actually be possible.
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Re: Genetics
Date: 2010-01-12 04:36 am (UTC)Luckily I looked this up and didn't have to troll for it.
So humans have 23, werewolves have 24 and vampires have 25 chromosomes.
Sire/Dam mismatched chromosomal counts will generally get you sterile offspring (think horse/donkey/mule). Very rarely a mule mare will be fertile, but the males never are. So I guess Meyer's thought (assuming thought was involved) was that Nessie has 24 chromosomes which makes her a perfect match for Jacob (also blessed with 24 chromosomes). However, at least one of Jacob's and Nessie's chromosomes do not match each other - so would most likely result in their offspring having 23 matched chromosomes and 2 unmatched chromosomes. And since we know that werewolves only imprint on mates who have a good chance of having baby werewolves, then there has to be some way that they match up.
Unmatched chromosomes are generally bad. Bad bad bad for you.
Unless they are XXY males or XXX females, in which case you are pretty much normal. I wouldn't think that the be extra sex chromosomes that Jacob and Edward would be sporting would be sex chromosomes, though. Unless, lets see, that would make werewolfism a sex linked characteristic and only males would inherit it (if on Y chromosome) but we know there is at least one female werewolf so that is out - if you have a Y you are a boy, no ifs ands or buts (HI Inverarity *waves*).
So it would have to be a recessive gene on the X chromosome, in which case you could have a female werewolf with double (no, triple) recessives. So Nessie would have to get her X chromosome from Bella, and lets say, two X's from Edward (because he has so much to give her - including extra genetic material). Then Nessie would have to be a XXX. So then Jacob (XXY) and Nessie would have kids who would be
... well I'll be damned.. that might actually be possible.