Procambarus clarkii clones?

A paper making a quite surprising claim snuck out back in August. Yue and colleagues, collecting Procambarus clarkii in China, claim to have found genetically identical individuals. They found 15 individuals that are genetically identical to at least one other individual in their sample of 120. This provides evidence of cloning in this very commonly used lab species. This is highly surprising if true, since there have been no shortage of labs working on P. clarkii over the years.

Doubtless more to come on this story!

Reference

Yue GH, Wang GL, Zhu BQ, Wang CM, Zhu ZY, Lo LC. 2008. Discovery of four natural clones in a crayfish species Procambarus clarkii. International Journal of Biological Sciences 4(5):279-282. http://www.biolsci.org/v04p0279.htm