Thread:Jurassic Park Treasury/@comment-11047508-20130610075940/@comment-1259419-20130715214813

they're saying is that the Lebanorhinus specimen may have been contaminated by a modern beetle because the 18s rRNA gene doesn't have the expected amount of divergence for a DNA sequence that old. Did you consider this?

Yes, and I have told it to you multiple times. I also responded to it on the forum.

I'm starting to think that it was indeed contaminated by an extant weevil, probably Hypera.


 * Then why isn't it a 100% similar?
 * What are the odds that an extraction from paleo-weevil is contaminated by extant weevil.
 * Why is this 'extant' weevil species never sequenced in the past 20 years while is should be contaminating lots of labs.

I also heard that 18s rRNA is often used alone to make a tree

You can't create a tree from only one sequence.