Strange Animals

[Naraoia]

Can always just go with the large worms

Wow, is that an earthworm? I want one as a pet!

Speaking of annelids, Nereis is terminally cute when you look it in the face.

I don't know if it was this or the other close-up from the same gallery that I posted a while ago. That whole gallery is well worth a look. It's full of similarly stunning pictures of weird and wonderful invertebrates. Like winged snails:

And more freaky annelids:

(I wouldn't want to get bitten by that one...)

See more awesome here.

This one is great.

Evolutionists, what time was this picture taken? It must be a magic moment in Devonian.
So, why not in Cretaceous?

You are contradicting yourself.

Remember when we discussed the green slugs? Your biggest problem was why didn't photosynthesis evolve in more animals.

Now you are pointing to something that did evolve multiple times (fish adapted to life on land) and implying that it overturns evolution.

-----

(P.S. Hespera, can you edit in a smaller Ichthyostega?)

 

[Hespera]

I dont seem to know how! i will delete and let you do mr Ichty

 

[shinbits]

Wow, is that an earthworm? I want one as a pet!

Speaking of annelids, Nereis is terminally cute when you look it in the face.

I don't know if it was this or the other close-up from the same gallery that I posted a while ago. That whole gallery is well worth a look. It's full of similarly stunning pictures of weird and wonderful invertebrates. Like winged snails:

And more freaky annelids:

(I wouldn't want to get bitten by that one...)

See more awesome here.

wow. awesome pics. and thanx for the link.

 

[pgp_protector]

You can always put Really large images in a spoiler tag

Spoiler: REALLY LARGE IMAGE

This allows the large image to be posted without breaking the flow of the page (until you view it)

 

[juvenissun]

That's true...Juvie was way out of line with that comment. If he's reading this, what he did was just as wrong.

Well, may be I was a little bit off line. But if I did not say that, I would not get any serious response I like to see.

 

[juvenissun]

Mudskippers are not fishapods. First of all, they are Ray Fins, not Lobe fins Like the fishapods of the Devonian were. Secondly, they do not have hands with fingers, nor elbows, nor do they have a true neck.

Here are examples of fishapods from the Devonian, and they are not found anywhere today:
Devonian Times - Front Page

Sorry for my bad biology. It just looked like a fish to me.

So, is mudskipper a fish or an amphibian or something else? Did mudskipper live in water before it breathed air directly? Was it a fish?

 

[juvenissun]

You are contradicting yourself.

Remember when we discussed the green slugs? Your biggest problem was why didn't photosynthesis evolve in more animals.

Now you are pointing to something that did evolve multiple times (fish adapted to life on land) and implying that it overturns evolution.

No, I am not contradicting to myself at all. You will see.

If a fish went to amphibian in Devonian time, then why not more fishes came up in Triassic, or in Cretaceous or in Eocene time? Now it seems we have a recent species came out of water onto the land (I might be wrong on this). If so, where are the others?

Am I very consistent along this line of thinking? It is a big problem for evolution. The process is incredibly selective and is almost equivalent to creation. In fact, this argument can be applied to all strange animals shown in this thread. Tell me honestly, when you look at these odd balls, what are you thinking about evolution? How did each one of them evolve into existence?

 

[Split Rock]

Sorry for my bad biology. It just looked like a fish to me.

So, is mudskipper a fish or an amphibian or something else? Did mudskipper live in water before it breathed air directly? Was it a fish?

Mudskippers are members of the Goby family, so yes they are a fish (an amphibious fish) and their ancestors were fully aquatic gobies.

No, I am not contradicting to myself at all. You will see.

If a fish went to amphibian in Devonian time, then why not more fishes came up in Triassic, or in Cretaceous or in Eocene time? Now it seems we have a recent species came out of water onto the land (I might be wrong on this). If so, where are the others?

Am I very consistent along this line of thinking? It is a big problem for evolution. The process is incredibly selective and is almost equivalent to creation. In fact, this argument can be applied to all strange animals shown in this thread. Tell me honestly, when you look at these odd balls, what are you thinking about evolution? How did each one of them evolve into existence?

Each evolved to exploit a particular niche that was opened for them. They also required the proper set of variations or mutations that allowed them to exploit such a niche. Think of a suspect in a crime: You have to show 1) Motive, 2) Opportunity. The ecological niche is the "motive" and the mutations or variations required represents the "opportunity."

Now lets look back to the Devonian Period. What competetion did the fishapod ancestors have for occupation of the land? Insects, and other arthropods... no much for competetion. There were open ecological niches, ready to be exploited. If the lobefins didn't do it, perhaps the ray fins would have (like the mudskipper of today). Because the land niches were wide open, there was a flowering of adaptive radiation during the Devonian to exploit them. We know of at least 14 different fishapod species/genera, and there must have been many more we have not found. Now look at today. Is there competetion on the land? You betcha! These niches are already filled. The mudskipper managed to find one, and to exploit it. But these are now few and far between.

 

[Hespera]

The mudskipper is a well known type of fish, here is a wiki article. Mudskipper - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It should answer the basic questions about the sort of fish it is.

A lot of us have thought about fish moving onto land, including the matter of it as an ongoing process ever since the the first fish were making the transition.

It is not hard to understand, certainly not a big problem to explain.

1. the types of fish that existed at that time, lobe fin fish were quite different from modern fish, and better suited for anatomical reasons than say, a carp, to make the transition.

2. At that time the land was a wide open environment, with nothing bigger and tougher than some arthropods. As the saying goes, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. In this case, anything that could get out of the water was king. No predators!

3. Despite the abundance of predators on land now, and the much more restricted 'career opportunities" on land for a beginner, there are now several species of fish that are quite successful at getting out of the water, moving about, and finding their way back, or into another body of water.

If they wanted to take on the job of evolving into more advanced land animals, they'd find that the raccoons and etc have a couple hundred million years headstart and wont be any good at competing, or escaping.

i have not made a study of it, and it could be hard to tell from fossils, but there probably have been a great many experiments over the last 300 million years or so, with fish coming out of the water. Not just fish either, there are crabs that are exclusively land dwellers, for example.

So far from the existence of living fish that can climb out of the water, and even climb trees being a problem for evolution, it nicely illustrates that these supposedly-to those who have never looked at the facts- impossible transitions from aquatic fish to land animal, from terrestrial reptile to flying bird are in fact just a series of small and rather obvious steps.

As for how ALL of those animals evolved to what they are now, that is a request for an encyclopedia. Sorry, n/a here, or maybe anywhere.

But dont be discouraged. Any history of WW2 will also be incomplete. Some things are controversial, others a complete mystery, some will never be known. That doesnt detract from the fact that we know the war did happen we know who won who lost and we know the basic details.

Same with evolution. WW2 has the advantage, that it lacks a holy book with its competing version unrelated to the actual artifacts / fossils that can be found.

 

[Aianna]

Axolotl.

And the weirdest animal of them all...

Spoiler: The weirdest animal

 

[juvenissun]

Mudskippers are members of the Goby family, so yes they are a fish (an amphibious fish) and their ancestors were fully aquatic gobies.


Each evolved to exploit a particular niche that was opened for them. They also required the proper set of variations or mutations that allowed them to exploit such a niche. Think of a suspect in a crime: You have to show 1) Motive, 2) Opportunity. The ecological niche is the "motive" and the mutations or variations required represents the "opportunity."

Now lets look back to the Devonian Period. What competetion did the fishapod ancestors have for occupation of the land? Insects, and other arthropods... no much for competetion. There were open ecological niches, ready to be exploited. If the lobefins didn't do it, perhaps the ray fins would have (like the mudskipper of today). Because the land niches were wide open, there was a flowering of adaptive radiation during the Devonian to exploit them. We know of at least 14 different fishapod species/genera, and there must have been many more we have not found. Now look at today. Is there competetion on the land? You betcha! These niches are already filled. The mudskipper managed to find one, and to exploit it. But these are now few and far between.

I know this would be your argument. This is probably the only one you can come up with. But I guess you might also know in your heart that it does not work.

There is rarely any particular niche for any particular one animal. There must be some other animals around and make it a habitat for a community. According to the niche idea, all these animals will share the same character of that particular niche. And we would expect to see a common denominator in the biology of all animals lived in that niche and it reflects the nature of that niche. This consideration pretty much eliminated the possibility of any real "unique" feature in any single animal species.

For example, this particular mudskipper came up to land. Why don't we see another similar fish species which lived in the same niche as this mudskipper also came up to land? If this is a particular species of mudskipper, why don't we also see other mudskipper species try the same adventure?

 

[Hespera]

I asked the secretary, and the janitor this morning if they knew what a "mudskipper" was. The secretary did; the janitor didnt, until I described it, then he said, "oh yeah, I have seen those on television." They both knew about walking catfish.

A few seconds on google would have also told Professor what a mudskipper is.

For some reason the professor of creation petrology with the highest possible degree of education was unaware of the existence of this fish, and could not tell to look at it whether it was a fish or an amphibian. Nor did he look it up, the sort of thing that a person with a touch of the actual researcher would do right away.

Now, he who admits that he knows little, has demonstrated well that he knows next to nothing of biology offers to falsify evolution with his sketchy and inaccurate ideas about ecological relationships.

i guess i could interrupt a math conference and say "so ya say this is math but ya aint even using numbers. har har, what a fake"

But some of would have more sense than to embarrass ourselves by presenting out ignorance as a superior insight.

As for this..."Why don't we see another similar fish species which lived in the same niche as this mudskipper also came up to land? If this is a particular species of mudskipper, why don't we also see other mudskipper species try the same adventure?

(ALL species are "a particular species", so its not "if")
In less time than it took to ask this odd question one could look it up and find that there are 18 different species of mudskipeprs. So why dont we see other mudskippers try the same "adventure"? Coz "we" didnt bother to look.

 

[Split Rock]

I know this would be your argument. This is probably the only one you can come up with. But I guess you might also know in your heart that it does not work.

Please do not make assumptions about what is in "my heart." When you ASSume.... well, you know what happens.. In any case, you are very wrong.

There is rarely any particular niche for any particular one animal. There must be some other animals around and make it a habitat for a community. According to the niche idea, all these animals will share the same character of that particular niche. And we would expect to see a common denominator in the biology of all animals lived in that niche and it reflects the nature of that niche. This consideration pretty much eliminated the possibility of any real "unique" feature in any single animal species.

It took time for the land to become hospitable to vertebrates. Terrestrial plants, especially forests needed to evolve, and arthropods needed to occupy the land. This provided the ecological niches and food sources for the vertebrates to exploit. These were not always there. In addition, the vertebrates needed to be "primed" with per-existing adaptations that would allow them to exploit the new niches. These lobe-fins were already "walking" on the bottom of water resources and had both lungs and gills. The next step really was pretty obvious. Even today, we see that such a transition is doable, with the mudskipper. Such exploitable niches, however, are hard to come by today.

For example, this particular mudskipper came up to land. Why don't we see another similar fish species which lived in the same niche as this mudskipper also came up to land? If this is a particular species of mudskipper, why don't we also see other mudskipper species try the same adventure?

I think you mean other gobies. Again, a niche has to be open for exploitation. Thie means extinction, or the opening of a brand new niche through change in the environment. I'm not sure which reason explains the mudskipper situation.. I will look into it.

 

[juvenissun]

Please do not make assumptions about what is in "my heart." When you ASSume.... well, you know what happens.. In any case, you are very wrong.


It took time for the land to become hospitable to vertebrates. Terrestrial plants, especially forests needed to evolve, and arthropods needed to occupy the land. This provided the ecological niches and food sources for the vertebrates to exploit. These were not always there. In addition, the vertebrates needed to be "primed" with per-existing adaptations that would allow them to exploit the new niches. These lobe-fins were already "walking" on the bottom of water resources and had both lungs and gills. The next step really was pretty obvious. Even today, we see that such a transition is doable, with the mudskipper. Such exploitable niches, however, are hard to come by today.


I think you mean other gobies. Again, a niche has to be open for exploitation. Thie means extinction, or the opening of a brand new niche through change in the environment. I'm not sure which reason explains the mudskipper situation.. I will look into it.

So, for fishes come up to land, it was harder at the beginning and it is harder now. So, why not a whole bunch of fish species came onto land during the time in the middle, say, in Jurassic?

Fishes are fishes. They are happy in water and they do not need to become land animals. Whatever explanation you make up to interpret the evolution of one species, there is always a question haunts you: why wasn't there another species doing the same thing at the same time or at a later time?

 

[Split Rock]

So, for fishes come up to land, it was harder at the beginning and it is harder now. So, why not a whole bunch of fish species came onto land during the time in the middle, say, in Jurassic?

Because there were plenty of tetrapods already occupying the terestrial niches... do Dinosaurs ring a bell? When the dinosaurs became extinct at the K-T boundary, what happened? The mammals diversified to fill all the empty niches. Why didn't they do so before? Because the dinosaurs were occupying them. Is this really hard to understand?

Fishes are fishes. They are happy in water and they do not need to become land animals. Whatever explanation you make up to interpret the evolution of one species, there is always a question haunts you: why wasn't there another species doing the same thing at the same time or at a later time?

Fishes are fishes? Is the midskipper just a fish? What was Tiktaalik? Acanthostega?

Why wasn't there another species doing the same thing? I told you there were many species doing this in the Devonian. It is not clear how many lines from the information we have. Maybe there was only one line, maybe there were more. As I explained before you need Motive and Opportunity both. Whoever has both first, has a "leg up" (pun intended) on the competition. We don't have all the whys for every species. We don't know exactly what gave Tiktaalik and its ancestors an advantage over other lobe-finned lines. You wouldn't be satisfied even if we did... would you, Juvie?

 

[Hespera]

So, for fishes come up to land, it was harder at the beginning and it is harder now. So, why not a whole bunch of fish species came onto land during the time in the middle, say, in Jurassic?

Fishes are fishes. They are happy in water and they do not need to become land animals. Whatever explanation you make up to interpret the evolution of one species, there is always a question haunts you: why wasn't there another species doing the same thing at the same time or at a later time?

harder at the beginning and harder now... hmm.

Fish are fish, yes, until their descendants become something else.

"they are happy in water". Their state of mind is evident to you and assumed to have any bearing on the nature of evolution?

But you can claim to figure out other peoples state of mind, too "haunts".

And you talk about other people making things up!

If no fish had any reason to come out on the land, then, why, haunting question wise, do you suppose a lot of fish DO come out of the water?

this is a good one..." why wasn't there another species doing the same thing at the same time or at a later time?

Why didnt you know that there are a lot of other species doing the same thing, coming out of the water? You could just take a few minutes to look for yourself instead of thinking someone is going to be "haunted" by a question that is already answered.

here is as fish that evidently is not so "happy" in the water.

Fish Lives in Logs, Breathing Air, for Months at a Time

 

[DaisyDay]

Fishes are fishes.

Some fishes breathe air and some fishes walk on land, well, crawl on land.

They are happy in water and they do not need to become land animals.

Mostly, but some did.

Whatever explanation you make up to interpret the evolution of one species, there is always a question haunts you: why wasn't there another species doing the same thing at the same time or at a later time?

Who says there wasn't? Look at bats and birds exploiting the air niche.

 

[Split Rock]

here is as fish that evidently is not so "happy" in the water.

Fish Lives in Logs, Breathing Air, for Months at a Time

Great article! Very interesting species! But, I think in your heart you know that a fish is a fish is a fish is a fish is a fish and that fish are perfectly happy in the water where God put them. What is Haunting you is the question, why aren't there other species doing this and why didn't they live in logs during the Cretaceous??

 

[Hespera]

deleted

 

[Hespera]

Some fishes breathe air and some fishes walk on land, well, crawl on land.

Mostly, but some did.


Who says there wasn't? Look at bats and birds exploiting the air niche.

Who indeed says there were not or are not now. Lots of fish that breath air and or come out of the water when they want to.



walking catfish
walking gourami
snakehead
rockskippers
wooley sculpin
american and european eels
Anabantoidei
eel catfish