![]() ![]() ![]() "Dogs not only offer comfort, support and friendship to humans, but many are actively bred or trained to provide vital services. ![]() "Balto personifies the strength of the bond between human and dog, and what that bond is capable of," said Katie Moon, a postdoctoral paleogenomics researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and co-lead author of the study published in the journal Science. Balto, belonging to a population of working sled dogs in Alaska, also was found to have possessed greater genetic diversity and genetic health than modern canine breeds. Scientists have extracted DNA from a piece of Balto's underbelly skin from the well-preserved museum mount and sequenced the dog's genome as part of an ambitious comparative mammalian genomic research project called Zoonomia.īalto's genome, the scientists found, possessed certain gene variants that may have helped the dog thrive in the extreme Alaskan environment and endure what is now called the Serum Run. ![]() But that was not the end of Balto's magnificent deeds. WASHINGTON - In 1925, a handsome male sled dog named Balto led a 13-dog team that braved blizzard conditions during the grueling final 85km leg of a 1,088km dogsled relay, bringing lifesaving medicine to the Alaskan city of Nome during a diphtheria outbreak.īalto was feted as a hero, the subject of books and movies, and the dog's taxidermy mount still stands on display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. ![]()
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