Posted by:
joeysgreen
at Mon Aug 29 05:23:02 2005 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by joeysgreen ]
What references were given in the back of the book? Just because they dispelled the myth that hatchlings cannot do well on mealworms doesn't mean that chitinase is involved.
An interesting experiment would be to collect gastric and intestinal samples and incubate them with chitin products contained withen. If chitinase of some sort were present than the gastric and/or duodenal samples would show some signs of chitin break down over time. If a symbiosis were involved, it would most likely occur in the later ends of the intestine. If this were to be the case, methods killing all the flora in the samples could be tested to see if breakdown of chitin still occured in a sterile sample (thus indicating that chitinase was released outside of the usual pancreatic fluids)
Let us know what you find ![](images/smiles/smile.gif) Ian
[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Hide Replies ]
|