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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
 Posted - 02/02/2006 : 17:52:12
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ID/11147751
quote:
"There had been theoretical models to explain the evolutionary mechanism — how selective pressures can maintain polyphenisms in a population, and why they don't converge gradually into one form or another," said Duke University graduate student Yuichiro Suzuki. "But nobody had ever started with a species that didn't have a polyphenism and generated a brand-new polyphenism."
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by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 02/03/2006 : 09:21:29 [Permalink]
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| Yeah, I thought that statement was not very forward-thinking... |
by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/03/2006 : 10:02:46 [Permalink]
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quote:
Huh? A complete change in color, cameoflage, does not impact their survival? Come on...
Exactly. The color change would possibly effect several factors in their survival.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 02/03/2006 : 10:41:45 [Permalink]
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| Yeah everybody know black caterpillars have bigger....feet. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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GeeMack
SFN Regular
USA
1093 Posts |
Posted - 02/03/2006 : 10:56:05 [Permalink]
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Interesting article, pleco. Thanks for sharing it. This brings to mind a North American bird with a fascinating trait that relates to color. The White-Throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) has two basic color forms, and each bird expresses its preference for a mate based on the color of the other. Oddly enough it tends to select a mate with the color trait opposite its own.quote:
From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology...
Cool fact: Opposites attract. Two color morphs occur with equal frequency among White-throated Sparrows, and each morph nearly always mates with the other. "White-stripe" morphs have sharply contrasting black-and-white head stripes and usually solid gray breasts; "tan-stripe" morphs have less-contrasting dull black-and-tan colored stripes, and they often have streaks on their breasts. The more aggressive "white-stripe" females are preferred by both forms and are more successful in attracting the preferred "tan-stripe" males. This combination forms most rapidly, leaving "white-stripe" males and "tan-stripe" females to pair with each other. The result is an observed 96 percent frequency of mixed-morph pairings.
Another interesting and intriguing characteristic of the White-Throated Sparrow, they apparently occasionally breed successfully with the Dark-Eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis), a bird not even of its own genera. This produces yet another color variation, although I haven't found any mention of these inter-species birds going on to produce more offspring.quote:
More from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology...
Although they look nothing alike, the White-throated Sparrow and the Dark-eyed Junco occasionally mate and produce hybrids. The resulting offspring look like grayish, dully marked White-throated Sparrows with white outer tail feathers.
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