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The legend of the werewolf has made its way into the annals of science. Researchers report that they have homed in on the location of a gene responsible for a werewolf syndrome.

Congenital generalized hypertrichosis is a rare genetic trait thought to be transmitted on the X chromosome. Individuals with this disorder have an upper body and face covered with hair and have often ended up in sideshows as human werewolves, say the authors.

Pragna I. Patel of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and her colleagues studied 19 members of a single, multigenerational family with this disorder. Her group extracted DNA from blood drawn from family members. Using a technique known as linkage analysis, they traced the gene to the long arm of the X chromosome.

Although Patel's group has narrowed the location of the gene to a neighborhood of DNA, they have yet to identify the actual gene itself.

Biologist Brian K. Hall of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, proposes this gene as an example of one that was important in our ancestral past but that has been turned off in modern humans. Patel points out that almost all mammals retain a protective furry coat. Perhaps this gene provided early humans with the same benefits, she speculates.

Patel's report and Hall's commentary appear in the June Nature Genetics.

The new report may spur an interest in other genes that control human hairiness. "It gives us another tool for understanding the genetics of hair growth," Patel says.