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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
 Posted - 08/16/2006 : 01:21:36
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Another great article from Carl Zimmer.
The Origin of the Ridiculous -- Evolution of the baleen whales.
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"Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me a pretty sick sort of religion quite honestly"
-- Terry Jones |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 08/16/2006 : 02:15:31 [Permalink]
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Very good indeed. But y'know, I really don't understand:
The foetal teeth found in baleen whale embryos fairly scream evolution as do the reminants of the pelvic girdle, and yet the creationists stoutly deny every bit of it. It is rather like finding a dollar bill and then claiming that there is no such thing as paper and ink.
Why is this? Why do they disbelieve the hard evidence presented them in favor of a story that would sound silly at a si-fi convention?
I dunno.
Thanks for an interesting read...
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2006 : 00:36:42 [Permalink]
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Resurrecting this thread.
Darren Naish has published three interesting posts on Rorquals, the group of baleen whales that includes the Blue Whale on his Tetrapod Zoology blog.
Part I : A 6 ton model, and a baby that puts on 90 kg a dayquote:
Unsurprisingly, babies increase their weight substantially during this time, with a 2-3 ton newborn blue whale putting on 90 kg a day, and reaching 20 tons by the time it is weaned. They are the fastest growing baby mammals.
Part II : From cigar to elongated, bloated tadpole(Cool pictures)quote:
A rorqual may engulf nearly 70% of its total body weight in water and prey during this action, which in an adult blue whale amounts to about 70 tons
Part III : Lunging is expensive, jaws can be noisy, and what's with the asymmetry? quote:
Rather than think of big whales as filter feeders, we should think of them as predators that take bites off of superorganisms that are hundreds of times larger
Enjoy! |
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