by Matthew Cobb
A quick post today as I have to dash off to sort out getting some flooring laid in a bedroom.
In Poland, Hili is uncertain. Except she knows there was something.
Hili: Ptak albo ssak, albo coś innego.
Greetings and good morning it’s Tuesday rush hour #rushhour #farmrushhour @caro_painter pic.twitter.com/oBsstRv5e7
— caenhillcc (@caenhillcc) November 12, 2019
A good view of an #echidna's backwards-pointing feet.👇👇#MonotremeMonday#fieldwork #Tasmania #echidnas #MammalWatching #WildOz pic.twitter.com/AtLbcHSQqR
— Jack Ashby (@JackDAshby) November 11, 2019
…And The Lord said, let there be light: and there was light.
Not everyone wanted light, though. pic.twitter.com/zfo18YfcqT— Dick King-Smith HQ (@DickKingSmith) November 12, 2019
And with that, I’m off to the flooring shop and thence to university, where I will be lecturing the first year on “What is an animal?” Chip in with your definitions below!
Animalia: I WikiLooked it up & I see that animals are all multicellular, motile [all or part of life cycle] eukaryotes, thus single-celled ‘protists’ are excluded which confuses me! Protists are eukaryotic organisms that are, by definition, not animal, plant, or fungus, but they’re not a natural group. There are [I think] protists that fulfil the criteria for being animals except they’re single celled…
I will have to investigate further
The phylogenetic tree of eukaryotes are almost entirely what are traditionally called protists. Among these are several groups with multicellular members.
Animals and plants and fungi are but twigs in this tree. So if one wants to use the term ‘protist’ as an official taxonomic term, then the entire eukaryote tree is a tree of protists, and animals, plants and fungi are also protists.
The sister taxon to the animal twig are protists called choanoflagellates.
Thanks Mark, I looked up the choanoflagellates you mention & that helped ease my confusion! 🙂
Madchester Matt:
I looked up display skeleton photos of echidna [spiny anteater] & there’s a very wide interpretation of how the back foot should be constructed – see two examples below & there’s many others that lie on a spectrum between the two. I wonder if this is poor scholarship, different species or perhaps young echidnas have ‘normal’ rear feet that fold under with maturity?
The Wiki merelt says their hind limb claws are elongated and curve under & backwards for digging, implying the bones are normal-facing.
Icouldn’t find really clear photos of the rear feet of living specimens, but the fuzzy ones I’ve looked at look as if the whole foot is folded under in some cases & not in others…
https://flic.kr/p/2hJHGJf
I have come across the same problem a few times with museum skeletons – the many copies of the Lucy skeleton are particularly bad. Leaves the door ajar for the creatards.
“I couldn’t find really clear photos of the rear feet of living specimens, but the fuzzy ones I’ve looked at look as if the whole foot is folded under in some cases & not in others…”
I think you’re right. Echidnas seem to have slightly abducted but forward facing knees and could knuckle-walk on hindpaws or not.
Nice epipubic bones in the first specimen 🙂
“Leaves the door ajar for the creatards”
Do you think creationists could have a good look at the echidna? I doubt it because monotremes are a clear case of “transitional forms” that should not exist according to creationists. For example, their pectoral girdle shows two (pairs of) coracoid bones in addition to the scapula, a reptilian trait. In other mammals (marsupials and placentals), there is only the scapula because the coracoid primordia fuse with other bones early during development.
Thanks DD, knuckle walking makes the most sense.
Re. creationists – anything is possible since they will light on one small discrepancy, error, change of consensus etc & use it to grandly sweep the whole edifice off the table & under the carpet.
JAC mentioned the below ceremony the other day & now there’s a Hurtigruten video up: “Hurtigruten’s hybrid powered expedition cruise ship MS Roald Amundsen has once again made history – as the first ship ever named in Antarctica.”
https://youtu.be/f128IWA0czw
MS Roald Amundsen is currently tied up at Punta Arenas to take on new passengers & start a new cruise. According to the map there should be the Chilean cruise ship MS Ventus Australis, tied up in view behind ‘our’ ship & yet it’s not in the photograph. I suppose the photo is earlier today & the map is current[ish].
CLICK TO ENLARGE
https://flic.kr/p/2hJKuAu
The Ventus australis is on the picture, but almost entirely hidden by Roald Amundsen’s central radome.
I see now that you’re right. I saw that lurking thing, but thought it too low down & not a passenger ship [thus not showing on the cruise liner map], but now that I actually check I see the Ventus has less decks & accommodates only 200 passengers.
Sub
…
Animals are not plants, fungi, bacteria, archaea, …. think that’s it. Also has to be alive. I think.
Dear Prof Jerry,
This is OT:
Back in 2015 you excoriated Karen Armstrong. Rightly so!
Could you have another go? Nicholas Kristof has just written a fawning review over at the Times, slavering over her “magisterial” new book “The Lost Art of Scripture”.
Link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/books/review/the-lost-art-of-scripture-karen-armstrong.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
I sometimes like Kristof. Sometimes he drives me mad.…
Regards from a restive Hong Kong.
Peter F.
Poor Karen. Of course scriptures are metaphorical and fictional. The problem is, getting the religious to understand that.
Poor Karen recently won $100k off TED & has scored further moolah in a handful of similar prizes. She is a post-Christian Christian who has described notions of the afterlife as a red herring & she can’t really be pinned down on what “God” is, though I gather she doesn’t think it’s a being as such. Her strategy is rather brilliant as she churns out books about compassion & her desire that the various religions & quasi-religions should unify their moral message. It’s dull, unevidenced wish thinking with furry bunny rabbits loved by all sorts of interest groups [political & religious & both] for their own non-fluffy reasons.
I looked up a Salon interview of hers & found this little pearl:
How marvellous it must be to sneer at Dawkins without watching/reading Dawkins – it’s a defining feature among the ‘spiritual’, but somehow really rather secularist most days of the week, ‘differently-believing’ asshats getting rich off spouting froth.
Agree. There is a vast emotional need, lack, or void, in the population of humanity at large for a way of thinking about our experience as human beings. It is very understandable that there are some people who see this vacuum and are willing to fill it to meet their own needs for fame and a steady income. I find her quite repulsive, in the nicest possible way. 😎
https://images.app.goo.gl/5WHSnRYzhbr7gjQy7
This is an Animal.
🤣
Yeah, you can tell by the teef🤓
Scene: Human guest and Kermit walk into the scene talking. The human guest steps over a line painted on the floor.
Kermit: “I wouldn’t stand there if I were you.”
Human Guest: “Why not?”
Kermit: “Because that’s how far Animal’s chain reaches!”
Animal: (suddenly appears, wildly charging the human guest) “RRRAAAARGGGH!”
Loved that show.
Me, too😻
Placido Flamingo, Grover-as-Washington crossing the Delaware, saying “cheese”…and on and on❤️
🙂
We always thought it was Placebo Flamingo!
Buddy Rich versus Animal:
https://youtu.be/VJh9W3Gcpmo
Animal’s got him some chops (to go with his chompers)…
As all the old carpenters would say, I no longer do floors or roofs.
What a question.
I know! The answer is so obvious.
There’s some terrible lip-syncing there!
Never mind, I don’t listen to House of the Rising Sun for the video….
cr
Wrt Marsh Farm rush hour, a chicken was first again.
Wot about a clip of them Fowls heading into the barn ,or would it be too dark to film ?
Are you having Laminate Flooring laid down ?
I hate carpets ,Laminate flooring in the entire gaff .
https://i.imgur.com/m1hmnN2.jpg
The photo is our living room just after the new floor was laid,the books are in the window sill because i didn’t have anywhere else to put them .
Guy in the photo is my twin brother who i care for ,and is a pain in the behind.
Wot about a clip of them Fowls heading into the barn ,or would it be too dark to film ?
Are you having Laminate Flooring laid down ?
I hate carpets ,Laminate flooring in the entire gaff .
https://i.imgur.com/m1hmnN2.jpg
The photo is our living room just after the new floor was laid,the books are in the window sill because i didn’t have anywhere else to put them .
Guy in the photo is my twin brother who i care for ,and is a pain in the behind.