Those wacky guinea-pigs

I'm no guinea pig expert, just bumping the topic up a bit.

MOST MAMMALS LIVERS CAN produce vitamin c. Humans and a few OTHERS CANNOT (i GUESS GUINEA PIGS ARE ON THE LOSING END LIKE US). tHE ENZYME IS SOMETHING LIKE L-GULONACETONE OXIDASE. (i HAVE TO LOOK IT UP SOMWHERE, I know Ive spelled it wrong ). The Vitamin C is essential to make norepinephrene from dopamine, besides preventing scurvy. Vit C is a gret antioxidant and Im really pissed that we cannot make the stuff and instead have to go out and buy these huuuge horse pills at CVS , where they sell TVs in the damn drug store,or we have to eat 30 oranges a day.

Somebody needs to go find a list ofall the animals that CANT produce their own Vitamin C, maybe we can intuit something intelligent from the grouping.

Google anyone?

Evolutionarily speaking, our closest relative is the guinea pig?

(According to spellcheck, "evolutionarily" is not a word, but I like it.)

There are times when I cannot resist to google...

Among the animals that have lost the ability to synthesise vitamin C are simians (higher primates), guinea pigs, the red-vented bulbul

,and fruit-eating bats.

Most notably, along with the rest of the ape family in which we reside, humans have no capability to manufacture vitamin C. The cause of this phenomenon is that the last enzyme in the synthesis process, L-gulonolactone oxidase, cannot be made by the listed animals because the gene for this enzyme, Pseudogene ΨGULO, is defective. The mutation has not been lethal because vitamin C is prevalent in their food sources, with many of these species' natural diets consisting largely of fruit.

from wikipedia

huh, I never knew that...

I had no idea the red-vented bulbul couldn't produce its own vitamin C! How about the other 118 species of bulbuls? Are they OK?

I have no idea about the rest of the bulbuls.
I didn't even know what a bulbul was til I looked!


Google?, anyone else?

Bulbul is an East AFrican word meaning --"ka ka from sky"

Do humans, guinea pigs and bulbul's all have the same mutation? That seems rather odd.

I wonder if this is a case of "loss of functionality which isn't needed" (because the benefits can be found elsewhere). Like loss of pigmentation in cave creatures.

Fruit-eating bats!

Humans and fruit-eating bats. Yes, I can see the connection.

I suddenly understand a lot more about myself.