Summary
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I.
Blaps mucronata has a diploid number of thirty six chromosomes in the male; four of these are sex chromosomes. Second metaphase nuclei contain either seventeen or nineteen chromosomes indicating a segregation of three X chromosomes from a single Y at the first division.
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II.
A distal euchromatic segment of the acrocentric Y pairs by chiasma formation with the terminal part of the euchromatic acrocentric XI. The other two X chromosomes are positively heterochromatic at first prophase and they associate with the proximal heterochromatic segment of the Y by means of a nucleolus.
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III.
The metaphase orientation of the sex-multiple is invariably convergent:
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1.
The centromeres of the X1 Y bivalent co-orientate as do those of normal bivalents.
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2.
The centromeres of X2 and X3 on the one hand and that of the Y on the other lie on opposite sides of the equator because the Y chromosome repels the two X chromosomes more strongly than they repel one another.
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3.
Convergent orientation, with the Y centrally placed, is prevented by the rigidity of the multiple.
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1.
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IV.
The evolution of the multiple sex chromosome systems in the genusBlaps has involved at least two factors:
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1.
Polyploidy, possibly associated with hybridisation, and
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2.
successive allosome/autosome translocations followed by reduction and loss of the Y and the “heterochromatinisation” of:
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a)
the non-pairing X-chromosomes, and
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b)
the differential segment of the Y.
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a)
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1.
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Lewis, K.R., John, B. The organisation and evolution of the sex multiple in Blaps mucronata. Chromosoma 9, 69–80 (1957). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02568066
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02568066