GC4XBZW Piper's Pups (Unknown Cache) in New Jersey, United States created by Piper the Pi-Rat

This cache has been archived.

OReviewer: As there's been no cache to find for a long time or has had no owner response for at least 30 days, I'm archiving it to keep it from showing up in search lists, and to prevent it from blocking other cache placements.

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GC4XBZW ▼

A cache by Piper the Pi-Rat Message this owner

Hidden : 6/16/2014

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Terrain:

Size: Size: regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

The cache is not at the posted coordinates but you can park there.

ge•net•ics [juh-net-iks]
noun (used with a singular verb )
1. Biology: the science of heredity, dealing with resemblances and differences of related organisms resulting from the interaction of their genes and the environment.
2. the genetic properties and phenomena of an organism.
Origin: see genetic, -ics; term first proposed in this sense by British biologist William Bateson (1861–1926) in 1905

When Piper the geo-rat is not out caching, she has been eating, sleeping, and daydreaming about her boyfriend Jack. Smitten with his thick jet black curls and sparkely eyes, she started to wonder how cute their babies would be and decided to brush up on some basic ratty genetics. She soon had the makings of her first puzzle cache. Can you figure out what Piper’s pups might look like?

For a particular trait, each rat has a set of genes, one inherited from the mother and one from the father, which make up it’s genotype. Variations in each gene are called alleles. If the pair of alleles are the same, this is called homozygous and heterozygous if they are different. These variations determine the rat’s phenotype or physical appearance.

For example, let’s say there are two alleles for a rat’s ear type. “E” would symbolize a regular ear and “e” would be a dumbo ear (larger ears that are set lower on the head). If a rat inherits an “E” from mom and “e” from dad, it would have a heterozygous genotype of Ee. The capitalized E allele would signify that regular ears are dominant and will override the recessive trait "e" when the ears are developing. Therefore, the phenotype of this rat would be regular ears. If the rat inherited homozygous dominant alleles (EE) from his parents, than he would also have regular ears. In contrast, if he had homozygous recessive alleles (ee), he would have dumbo ears.

Piper is a blue rex rat (blue rat with a full, curly coat) and Jack is a black rex. Assuming that coat color and curliness are independently assorted genes, or genes that are inherited and do not affect each other, you can determine what the offspring of Jack and Piper would potentially look like. All you would need is a little information about each.

When determining the coat color, blue “b” is a diluted black color and is recessive to black “B”

When determining the coat condition, rex is a dominant gene “R” over straight hair “r”. However, any rat that is homozygous for two rex alliles “RR”, is considered a double rex and will lose patches of hair as it matures resulting in a sporadic balding.

Jack is heterozygous for both traits “BbRr”

Their first litter, or F¹ generation, consists of 16 pups.

N 40° 27.ABC
W 074° 19.DEF
A= Number of blue rex pups
B= Number of blue straight - 1
C= Number of black rex + black double rex
D= Total number of rex rats - 7
E= Number of black straight - blue double rex
F= Total number of rats that will lose hair

-This is a gross oversimplification of how rat genetics work but, I do not claim to be a breeder, nor geneticist

. Happy hunting!

You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com.

A special thanks to LeftyLeo and Lati.dude
for being Piper's lab rats.

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Piper's Pups Mystery Cache

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