How feasible is it and by what process? Would it more feasible as some sort of architecture grafted onto its back over which skin can grow, or is it within the realm of possibility that it could be achieved through genetic manipulation?

How feasible would a black market in such beasties be?

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited November 10, 2006).]
 

[This message has been edited by Jeraliey (edited November 10, 2006).]
 

The closest lizard I know of that would serve as a model is the basilisk - a South American lizard tha has flaps on its rear feet and runs on two legs. It's actually able to scoot across water. Arguably, it's on an evolutionary path towards flying, though it's still hardly a ong way down the road.
 

Why?
 

[This message has been edited by arriki (edited November 11, 2006).]
 

That could also be a potentially sweet rewrite of "Of Mice and Men," if a future Lenny had a mouse's had grafted onto his belly that he could take anywhere with him.
 

Anyway, back to the original question, feasibility depends on required function. If the alteration is purely cosmetic, it doesn't make sense to do it biologically, simply glueing a wing-like decoration on the lizard would accomplish pretty much the same effect. If the wing has to actually allow flight, then you're probably better off trying to engineer an organism from scratch rather than trying to modify any existing chordate. I would start from a cockroach, personally...unless the damn thing had to act like a lizard...then I'd have to go from scratch (or close enough). If you want the wings to flap and stuff, but the thing doesn't need to actually fly, then I'd go with a powered prosthetic actuated by somatic cues from the lizard.

If the customer wants to believe that the wings are "real", then I'd go with the lizard's own skin stretched over an implanted structure...you know, like a boob job.
 

Also, I think the genetic quality of mice has been kind of beat-down over the generations of purebreeding, so that they are tolerant of a lot of indignities. But I could be wrong about that.

Another idea is to double-bud the arms on the embryo so it has two sets of arms, and then alter the arms so they have webbing. A final horrific surgery removes the arms and reinstalls them on opposite sides, upside down and backwards.

But does it spit fire!?!
 

And what's the point of an ear, particularly one that cannot hear? Now, I can think of other appendages that would be MUCH more useful. I should think a mouse could use a giant nose instead...although, sporting a giant fin-like protrusion on its back might make the act of squeezing into my silverware drawer to deposit some mouse poop more of a challenge.
 

The point of using a mouse for this is that the alternative would be to keep the human patient in a sterile environment for the several weeks it would take for the skin to cover the prosthesis completely. During that time, the patient would need to be on immunosuppressants to minimize (not eliminate) the severe itching and inflammation at the healing site (even though the scaffold is non-allogenic, the situation provokes that response, a shard of glass stuck in your foot is non-allogenic too). And a chance accident with 50+ kilos of meat lolling about could destroy the whole thing at anytime, just by accident (particularly when the patient is trying to sleep).
 

A functioning wing on a lizard would be different: you'd need to integrate it into the skeleton and musculature. But if you're willing to have it not be present-day, well, use your genetic engineering handwavium and you'll have little dragonlets to your heart's content. Such a world should also have a variety of other made-up creatures, too.
 

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited November 12, 2006).]
 

A genetic alteration would be present in every living cell of the creature, and if biotechnology were advanced enough to produce such a beasty, then cloning one from any living cell of an existing specimen would be a snap. Heck, we could do that much with today's technology if you're talking about lizards, mammals are far more difficult to clone and that's yesterdays news.
 

I suspect the variations would probably trend toward the ancestral norm ie, wings eventually breed out and the drake reverts to basic lizard. How likely would more interesting, stable, speciating effects be?

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited November 12, 2006).]
 

Of course the 'knock-offs' would have some failures, but a first generation lizard has billions of cells. Even if we assume that the success rate for cloning them is miniscule, a thousandth of a percent chance of a high quality duplicate, you can still get thousands of basically perfect copies from any first generation sample. A single first generation lizard would keep a bootlegger in work for life, if the alteration were genetic.

The tendancy for the quality to "breed out" would be entirely negated by simply not cloning anything that wasn't a prime specimen. Heck, successive generations of clones might end up being "better" than the originals, even though you forfeit the effects of meiosis and sexual reproduction. But the natural selection pressure against having a non-functional organ wouldn't be in effect. For one thing, the wings are the only thing that makes these things 'fit' to be pets, and for another, the 'breeding' is 100% artificial.

I think that you're better off going with articulated surgical implants if you want to control the supply. The implants could be genuine bones grown around a biodegradable scaffold, and you could even do some musculature using the same technique (in the future, current technology is not quite that far). If you incorperated autonomic nerve tissue, the wings would even react to the lizard's moods (lizards aren't as moody as mammals, but they do have moods...of a sort) and movements.

Such a surgical technique would be much easier to perfect than a macrogenetic alteraction of that scale, and there would be little danger of anyone being able to make copies without reduplicating the entire initial investment.
 

do I think it could be done? maybe... (evil lab with mutant lizards pops into thought bubble)... YOU SEE NOTHING!
 

The reason you'd have to use differentiated somites is that if they're undifferentiated and uncommitted, hox genes and developmental morphagens will control what structures will grow from which cells. Regardless of where the cells actually come from. If they're differentiated, though, they'll develop into whatever structure they're committed to, no matter where you put them (if the morphagen gradient doesn't affect it too much at that point).

Anyway, that just gets you a lizard with an extra set of forelegs, which then have to be altered somehow to make wings. The problem is that if you make those alterations genetically, then it will tend to turn all your forelegs into wings. Making the extra set of forelegs into wings while leaving the proper set as legs is really difficult. And it seems kind of pointless since the wings wouldn't be functional without radical changes in the overall phenotype, including a lot of central nervous system meddling.