News Genetics

To make female pill bugs, just add bacterial genes

Bits of Wolbachia DNA infiltrate an arthropod’s genetic makeup and change sex determination

pillbug

SEX LIVES Wolbachia bacteria have done some remarkable things to sex in terrestrial crustaceans commonly called pill bugs — even when the actual bacteria are long gone.

Walter Siegmund/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) 

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

ORLANDO, Fla. — When sex chromosomes among common pill bugs go bad from disuse, borrowed bacterial DNA comes to the rescue.