Classics revisited: Miguel Fernández on germ layer inversion and specific polyembryony in armadillos

Miguel Fernández was an Argentinian zoologist who published the first account of obligate polyembryony in armadillos. His contribution is here discussed in relation to his contemporaries, Newman and Patterson, and more recent work.

Fernandez worked on the mulita (Dasypus hybridus). He was able to get early stages before twinning occurred and show it was preceded by inversion of the germ layers. By the primitive streak stage there were separate embryonic shields and partition of the amnion. There was, however, a single exocoelom and all embryos were enclosed in a common set of membranes comprising chorion towards the attachment site in the uterine fundus and inverted yolk sac on the opposite face. He showed that monozygotic twinning did not occur in another armadillo, the peludo (Chaetophractus villosus).

Fernández's work represented a major breakthrough in understanding how twinning occurred in armadillos. His work and that of others is of intrinsic interest to zoologists and has a direct bearing on the origin of monozygotic twins and birth defects in humans.