Oddities in the animal kingdom

[Fishteacher73]

Possibly the oddest is the platypus. Not only is just plain wierd by just about any yard stick, it is also venomous (Males have spurs on thier thighs that inject the venom). Not only that moden science really does not know what this venom is. (It is neither a neurotoxin, myctixin, nor a necrotoxin). Envenomation is extemely painful (Morphine will not dull the pain. Usually epidural-like blockers are used to numb the envenomated limb).

[alxian]

the platypus is fine.

the oddest could be the (check google for SP.) coelacanth

thought to have died out with the dinos was caught by fisher men who've been netting them for generations..

but i still say the oddest creatures are deep see creatures and missing animals from the antartic jungles.

the best way to tell if they will be 'weird' or not will be how long ago did it separate from pangea. australia did so and was separate for much longer than a few other continents maybe the longest.

but i'd bet a few pesos the antartica jungle has been estranged from the mainland as long or longer meaning life there would have evolved differently for much longer than any life forms on earth.. wouldn't it be fun though to see animals that were supposed to have evolved after the continents separated.

[ton-loc]

ok ok guys this is what actually happened... so there was this guy named god and he was all like i am going to make an earth so he was all like hmm i am going to make people and animals and plants and earth and water and trees and bugsa and mushrooms and badgers and fish and whales and monkey and beavers and mooses and women with mustaches and black people... so he made them and thts how ti all happened so get it straight guys.

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by ton-loc

ok ok guys this is what actually happened...

Hey there ton-loc

Welcome to Hypography! We do enjoy jokes but please try to stay on topic in our discussions. Use the Watercooler for nonsensical stuff.

[Fishteacher73]

Originally Posted by alxian

the best way to tell if they will be 'weird' or not will be how long ago did it separate from pangea. australia did so and was separate for much longer than a few other continents maybe the longest.

If I recall both Austrailia and Antarctica split off of Lauraisa about 135 million years ago. at this point, Austrailia kinda hung out near where iit is now and Antarctica made a b-line for the pole. The only fossil evidence that I am aware of being found in Antarctica are aquatic fossils from before the seas recessed.

[alxian]

ton... thank you.. debates are always best with a modicum of comic relief. welcome to the forum.

as for this guy named god, i'm more likely to believe he sneezed on his way through sols domain and life was begat that way, but he kept right on trucking and never looked back.

equally i like the summerian story of creation that tells of a planet called tiamat that was cleaved by another called nibiru, this interloper then continued on on a new path outside of our solar system. whether our not nibiru was in fact populated at the time of the cleaving is not certain but the summers would have us believe it was that the collision shared matter with the new planet (earth, the contiguous remains of the traumatized tiamat). one of the reasons i like the story is that it allows for dinosaurs to have in fact existed on earth, because by all accounts the larger flighted terrestrial dinos namely pterodactyls could not have actually flown in earth current gravity. also the moon would have been closer to a more massive planet (if in fact that cleaving wasn't the origin of the moon in the first place)(where science says earth was impacted at some point by a mars sized planet which could have shorn off enough matter to have formed the moon). but besides all of those reasons which still don't account for all the oddness of the current configurations of things (namely the moons orientation (unless the fact the moon is heavy on one side meaning it was formed after/during the destruction of tiamat, the satelite (the moon) would have been subject to earths pull, meaning its oddness is in fact accounted for by the summers tale), but what i mean is why the remains of tiamat just happen to make a twin of venus of the earth.. that just very odd. getting back to the moon.. if in fact it was formed under the pull of earth, wouldn't it have a spin of some kind? with the axis pointing at earth? still, but i guess the fact the moon is dead and has no rotation kind of points to an abnormal formation.. because had it formed as most bodies do by concretion it should have some amount of rotation and internal heat.. so it looks like it was put there, and formed in earths gravity and the oddness is just that non-coincidental oddness.. i'm still left with the question why is it moving away slowly (science says the moon was closer to the earth in prehistoric times, if this is so and the summers were wrong, what accounts for the outward drift, has it stabilized? or will the moon escape from earth some time in the future?)

[alxian]

so yeah the antarticans should be equally as far removed from normal evolution as astralians (animals not people). heck if they found human bones on antarctica i'd be very very happy. it would beg very huge questions as to how peeps got there.. as in did they get there by ship, or is evolution going to have to bite another bullet.

furthermore, what if the skeletons found on antartica are more modern than is possible but dated to be extremely ancient... i mean a boat isn't hard to build any fool can build a raft, but to have gotten there and settled (easy enough given the place was lush jungle at one point) who would they be most closely related to? perhaps they could be the snake people the egyptians ran from, perhaps the peeps responsible for the missing north american copper.. who knows. so many questions to be answered.

not that i'd want to be on the expidition to the pole, i'd sure like to know how much science to date has gotten right about human origins and subsequent evolution.

lol.. what if they found a mayan spaceport? (by mayan i mean any pacific rim culture, that would have tried to escape the ice age)

[Fishteacher73]

It would seem unlikely that any human remains would be on Anarctica (Aside from possible modern remains). Early humans showed up at the EARLIEST about 40 million years ago (most estimates put it at about half of that at 20 million years ago). Antarctica was well below a lot of ice by that point. There would not really be any resources to attract settlement or exploration.

As for the coelacanth, a true wierdo. Last of the lobe finned fishes, a living fossil. Although sharks are just as ancient, and still quite prominant in the oceans.

[MortenS]

there are lots of different dinosaur fossils found in Antarctica. And also a marsupial fossil. The first dinosaur fossil was found in 1986, while the marsupial fossil was found in 1982 (about 40 million years old)

[alxian]

really?? if it was a forest would there not be coal and oil????

**edit i mean jungle...i'm too canadian, when i think trees i automatically think forest**

when you say antartica.. you mean the coast? i wanna have them use a (stone burner, to pay homage to herbert) of some sort to get at main land antartica, near where they claim a fresh water lake exists

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf102/sf102g10.htm
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/antarctic-04g.html

kinda lends credence to the atlantis myth if antarctica is atlantis... its covered in water (a stretch) has a volcano (true) moved away from where it once was (further up in the atlantic ocean, and thus the americas and african northern coast (closer to egypt and the mediterranean))

imagine it.. a hole surrounded by solar panels, a sub surface base burried in the ice to avoid exposure (which wouldn't need to be closed just fortified) and a deep bore hole down to the lake (that must remain un disturbed, anything going down that hole must be surgically sanct.. not a trace of life from the surface to contaminate it.. since europa as the artical mentions is the only other possible place to find life of this pristine quality in our solar system that we know of. (sorry for the poor wording)