The Biology, Agriculture, and Paleontology thread

... That seems pretty nonsensical to me.

Yeah, but the first example had both the nominate subspecies and the domestic subspecies first described together at the same time (Linnaeus, 1758), and contrary to popular perception, Canis lupus lupus is not ancestral to the domestic dog but rather co-evolved from the same now-extinct ancestral species; while the second example seems invalid because Sus scrofa domesticus is now considered a synonym of Sus scrofa scrofa (AKA Central European boar), i.e. there's no sufficiently significant difference between the wild and domestic subspecies of pigs from a zoological perspective.

Either way, neither of the two cases involved the artificial (sub)species being discovered before the natural congeneric/conspecific one.

edited 7th Feb '17 10:14:07 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Why Elephants never forget -TED

It's rather old, but this is pretty horrifying for me on a moral level. They seem to possesses a level of sapience indistinguishable from a human.

edited 7th Feb '17 10:26:29 AM by pblades

Scientists have developed an Ebola vaccine from horse antibodies.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."

Well, I think I just discovered something relevant to my most recent question about the naming of subspecies when the first one to be officially described is later discovered to have arisen through artificial means (whether through old-fashioned domestication and/or selective breeding, or more sophisticated scientific means like genetic engineering). Namely, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature's Opinion 2027.

I can see this ruling easily amended to include genetically engineered species if my hypothetical scenario ever becomes reality, and conversely it would seem plausible to have such a thing happen in a fictional story in which such a scenario does take place. What do you think?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Different question: Can a species complex exist in the following circumstances?

1. Its parent genus is effectively monotypic, i.e. there are no other species within the genus that aren't also members of the species complex.
2. Said genus is monotypic within its family (or whichever taxonomic rank below "family" is immediately above it, e.g. tribe or subfamily).
3. Said family is monotypic within its order (or whichever taxonomic rank below "order" is immediately above it, e.g. suborder).

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I've been told that this question would probably get better answers if I posted it here (Yes, I know, I forgot about said question until now; sue me).

The question, to spare people from having to click on the link: Does punctuated equilibrium count as Truth in Television for Evolutionary Stasis, and thus any examples of it (such as Gerrothorax pulcherrimus^note Fossil record extends over 35 million years with few morphologic differences, speculated to be the result of high tolerance to different environments.) are real-life examples of the trope?

I recommend reviewing the discussion over this question that starts from here and ends here, in order to make sure that points of argument aren't unnecessarily repeated.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Taxonomic ranks do not exist. They are a man made system, and one that needed fixism to be congruent and useful. Disregard them and everything goes far more smoothly.

All there is are clades, and clades are fuzzy at the splitting points, as it is a continuum.

And punctuated equilibrium is not evolutionary stasis. Evolution is still at work; however, the most viable to the current environment already make the bulk of the population. And, if you happen to look at a well sampled with proper strat work, you notice that it isn't really the case: Triceratops changes gradually as you go from the bottom to the top of the Hell Creek formation, so you cannot really split Triceratops horridus from Triceratops prorsus. Of course, most events of cladogenesis happen after the environment changes, because the presure shifts, but, in any case, the mechanisms are constant.

Hell, the African rhino species probably split due to chromosomal divergence (one population got a chromosome split in 2; still works fine, but breeding with individuals with a different chromosome count will produce more often than not sterile hybrids), so they were forced to remain separate despite living in the same places. One adapted to grazing, and became larger, and the other specialiced in browsing, becoming the most specialized browser of all rhinos, and now they are quite distinct,◊ despite living in what'd count as a stable period.

And this is megafauna with long generations and low number of offspring. Having to take a different flu vaccine each year just shoots down punctuated equilibrium, or any pretense of evolutionary stasis in real life.

Sincerely, a biologist with a zoology specialization and a biodiversity master's.

... Okay. Now at least I have a summary of the pro-cladistics camp's arguments on the matter. No offense, but AFAICT cladistics is not as absolutely superlative to other approaches to taxonomy as you paint it to be, so I can't simply assume that the answer you gave is the right answer.

Anyone else willing to offer feedback?

Sincerely, someone who wishes to hearing the opinions of all potential sides before deciding what to believe in

edited 4th Sep '17 11:43:10 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Well, the more prone to deal with evolutive raminifications a field is, the more likely it is to use cladistics. Ornithology and dinosaur paleontology is where modern cladistics and molecular analysis first appeared, and they just do not work without cladistics as of now, while other fields don't care as much for the evolutionary repercusions and thus are less prone to use them (paleoanthropology tried to pass this year a basic cladistic analysis as a never before seen step, as they tend to be disconnected from either paleontology or mammal zoology).

Cladistics are the best approach so far to deal with classification and evolution. Biology revolves around evolution.

Systema Naturae predates The Origin Of Species by 101 years, it made sense back then, but we learned more, and we had to change stuff.

And, again, the linnean ranks are arbitrary and meaningless. Hell, species, the one that may hold some ground, holds that ground because it is used as an unit, and even then it has about 7 definitions depending on context.

A clade is an evolutive group, defined by common ancestry. If you can explain to me what is an order, or a class, or why the order Coleoptera is both more ancient than class Aves, and more diverse than ANYTHING, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. But, as it is, ranked systematics are pretty much the same as geocentric models: They explain something, but they are rendered obsolete by crucial pieces of information.

edited 7th Sep '17 5:02:47 PM by Eriorguez

Posting it here because I can't think of a more fitting thread:

Bear in Myanmar has giant tongue removed by team of vets

"Astonishing" is a pretty tame way to describe it.

edited 23rd Oct '17 8:34:32 PM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised

I've been a fan of TREY Explainer.

Where there's life, there's hope.

Wait why the heck is agriculture included in this thread?

what do you mean I didn't win, I ate more wet t-shirts than anyone else

While reading a piece of Canadian political news I came across this article: Killer whale lets her dead newborn go after carrying body for 17 days. Apparently for killer whales to drag the bodies of their dead children along isn't that uncommon but so long has never been observed. Per the article, there hasn't been a successful birth among the southern resident killer whales in three years.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

That is worrying. What is the cause? Some kind of chemical or radiation?

Where there's life, there's hope.

It's not uncommon for a number of whale and dolphin species to be recorded nudging and carry a dead calf around for a week or more. It's rare for them to be recorded doing it for as long as this orca.

I know the southern population has been struggling with food resources for some time; scientists have been reporting for some time that the adults are increasingly underweight and that alone could damage the viability of a pregnancy. However, it's worth observing that there has been evidence of declining birthrate in a number of cetacean species all around the world, so there could be several factors at work. The obvious (or perhaps most urgent) one for the Southern Residents is rapidly declining food resources, however.

Edited to add:

Here's a National Geographic article from 2016 on the fact that the Southern Resident pods are starving to death, and with an interesting observation added in about the damaging contribution capturing whales for sea aquariums has had on this population.

As salmon dwindle, whales die

I checked Lolita's status. She's still alive (she survived Hurricane Irma) and has recently been added to the endangered classification of the Southern Residents. Activists want her freed immediately but experts aren't convinced this is a good idea — she's been in captivity for 48 years (she's 52 years old) and the wild pods, as discussed, are in poor shape. Plus, there's only one similar test case for the experts to go on (Keiko's) — and Keiko's release was a failure.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 12th 2018 at 12:20:30 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

New research on the giant Late Cretaceous African theropod Spinosaurus suggests that it was more terrestrial than previously believed.

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

Gee, that boy just zigzags all over the place.

Where there's life, there's hope.

Indeed. Speaking of which, does that have any impact on the results of a hypothetical Tyrannosaurus vs. Spinosaurus battle?

Edited by MarqFJA on Aug 19th 2018 at 9:15:58 PM

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

So according the the recent findings, the Spinosuarus was basically a giant stork?

My money would be on Tyrannosaurus for its bite force alone. Even if it was less aquatic than previously thought, Spinosaurus was almost certainly not attacking anything the size of Tyrannosaurus.

Something like that, but a heron (which generally eats more aquatic prey than storks) might be a more appropriate comparison. That said, some have noted that the Spinosaurus model used has some anatomical inaccuracies (the hips being too narrow, for example), so take it with a grain of salt.

Edited by Spinosegnosaurus77 on Aug 19th 2018 at 2:35:57 PM

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

NVM, misread the article.

Edited by Millership on Aug 20th 2018 at 6:41:36 PM

Spiral out, keep going.

Bite force doesn't mean having a higher "attack stat", it just means the animal needed a powerful chomp so it could bite and hold onto large prey. Most theropods don't have very strong bites, because their teeth were mostly used as slashing tools: Bite into the flesh, and pull the head back, leaving a grisly wound or taking a nice chunk of flesh from a living animal. Tyrannosaurus were biting into the bone and tearing it out instead. And Spinosaurus was biting and holding faster but weaker prey than Tyrannosaurus, so it had snappy jaws with railroad spike teeth, to impale large fish.

Also, this study means the 2014 restoration of Spinosaurus was no diver. That restoration is not agreed upon, as it has plenty of unverified claims in its making (and, to be honest, the paper went full sentationalism).

How do lungs scale with a vertebrate animal's size? Do blue whales, for example, have significantly bigger lungs in proportion to their bodies than humans?

Edited by MarqFJA on Aug 23rd 2018 at 2:05:10 PM

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I'm not sure, but I would suggest that comparing the cetaceans or the pinnipeds (and probably the sirenia) to any land animals is definitely a case of apples vs oranges. Whales especially, but also many species of seal, sea lions etc, have respiratory systems designed for extended periods underwater without access to fresh air while pretty much every land animal, humans included, default to an assumption that fresh air is freely available the vast majority of the time.

Cetaceans also need to consider the fact that lungs float on water.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman