G C A T T A C G G C A T genes Article New Bird Sexing Strategy Developed in the Order Psittaciformes Involves Multiple Markers to Avoid Sex Misidentification: Debunked Myth of the Universal DNA Marker Aleksandra Kroczak 1, Magdalena Wołoszy ´nska 1 , Heliodor Wierzbicki 1 , Marcin Kurkowski 1 , Krzysztof Aleksander Grabowski 1, Tomasz Piasecki 2, Livio Galosi 3 and Adam Dawid Urantówka 1,* 1 Department of Genetics, Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Kozuchowska˙ 7, 51-631 Wrocław, Poland;
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[email protected] (M.W.);
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[email protected] (K.A.G.) 2 Department of Epizootiology and Clinic of Bird and Exotic Animals, Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, pl. Grunwaldzki 4, 550-366 Wroclaw, Poland;
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[email protected] Abstract: Sexing of birds is indispensable for scientific, breeding and conservation programs but is difficult in many species and is particularly problematic in the case of nestlings showing no sexual Citation: Kroczak, A.; Wołoszy´nska, dimorphism. Most useful and efficient methods of sex determination are based on unique features M.; Wierzbicki, H.; Kurkowski, M.; of the Z and W sex chromosomes detected via PCR to distinguish males (ZZ) and females (ZW). Grabowski, K.A.; Piasecki, T.; Galosi, During the last twenty-five years researchers searched for the universal marker capable of sexing L.; Urantówka, A.D.