Linear animals or inbred strains are animals of a particular species which are nearly identical to each other in genotype due to long inbreeding. Mating of brother-sister pairs for 20 generations will result in lines that are roughly 98% genetically identical, usually sufficient to be considered an inbred strain (compare to identical twins or clones which are 100% genetically identical, or fraternal twins or normal siblings, which are roughly 50% identical). Such animals are frequently used in laboratories for experiments where for reproducibility of conclusions all the test animals should be as similar as possible. However, for some experiments, genetic diversity in the test population may be desired. Thus outbred strains of most laboratory animals are also available. The most known lines of animals are:
Rats
- Wistar
- Sprague-Dawley
- Long-Evans
Mice
Guinea pig
- Strain 2
- Strain 13
