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platoprime t1_jablhlw wrote

Reply to comment by ke_marshall in Why does temperature determine the sex of certain egg laying animals like crocodiles? by insink2300

Why don't they use XY? Is it just alphanumeric numbering starting with the A chromosome? How do they pick the order of the chromosomes?

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lqstuart t1_jabmph1 wrote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_chromosome

Tldr - they noticed the X chromosome was weird, so they called it X. Then Y was the next letter. Then Z and W came about to distinguish between the ZW system and the XY system (also it's important to note that the X chromosome is the X chromosome, period, whether it's in a mouse or a human or whatever--it refers to a specific thing that plays a specific role).

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