The hipster chicken's secret is out: now we know how it got its beard. "The Huiyang bearded chicken is a famous local breed/' says Xiaoxiang Hu at the China Agricultural University in Beijing. When Hu and his colleagues searched for the genes that control the development of beards in chickens, they found that a complex mutation switches on the HoxB8 gene in the skin cells of a chicken's chin (PLoS Genetics. doi.org/bjkd). The gene makes them grow long feathers to form a handsome beard. They also develop mutton chops called "muffs" to go along with it.
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