Barbarian observes:
It merely corrects some things you got wrong. Most notably, the fact that the oldest bat is transitional in a way that was predicted beforehand shows that your assumptions are not consistent with the facts.
Ha ha haaaah!
Let's have some proof of this .
You posted it earlier, I believe. The prediction that the transitional between bats and other mammals would have shorter arms and longer hind limbs, with skull and digits intermediate. Which is precisely what the oldest known transitional is:
"It is like this is sort of half way to being a modern bat. It's the most primitive bat that we know. It could clearly fly. But it could not echolocate. The evidence from the skull and throat region shows us none of the features that echolocating bats have," Seymour said in a telephone interview.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/...3515662008021
Barbarian observes:
Just correcting your (in this case) misconceptions. The oldest known bat did not echolocate as bats do today. The proportion of limbs, retention of claws on wings, and other features were predicted by scientists before it was found.
However, Veselka et al (2010) have reported new tomographic studies of the ears and throats of modern bats which suggest that fusion or articulation of the stylohyal and tympanic bones is a better predictor of the capacity for laryngeal echolocation than the shape of the stylohyal bone. Since the stylohyal and tympanic bones may well have articulated in Onychonycteris finneyi, Veselka et al conclude that the echolocating ability of this fossil bat needs to be re-evaluated. I know this report actually appeared in last week’s Nature but I thought it was interesting enough to give it a belated mention here.
It doesn't say so. Except, in the trivial sense that you and I can echolocate. Just not with the efficiency of modern bats. Notice that the statement says that
if one scientist is right about his controversial theory of echolocation (which has not been confirmed by data), and
if a particular anatomical relationship is true for the primitive bat,(which is not known) then O. finneyi might have been able to echolocate.
You're wrong again! Tut tut, man!
Surprise. Read carefully. It matters.
(some confusion about pinnipeds)
The sea lions are thought to have evolved from 1 a dog-like creature or 2 a bear-like creature. (Koretsky.)
More precisely, a creature that was intermediate between a dog and a bear. And now, such creatures are known to have existed.
Koretsky, incidentally, is Palaeontologist and Research Associate, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, and Assistant Professor of Anatomy, Howard University.
In interview she said:
We could not find, we couldnot name it, the exact animal which make it this missing link between bear-like animal and an eared seal or sea lion.
Dr Annalisa Berta, Professor at San Diego State University, specialising in aquatic animal evolution:
"The earliest that we've recognised has the name Pithanotaria. It is very similar in body size and morphol;ogy to the modern sea lions [So no evolution there, then]."
Two problems with her ideas (which are not held by most scientists who study pinnipeds.
1. It contradicts genetic data, showing pinnipeds to be monophyletic.
2. Recently discovered fossil pinnipeds, like Puijila darwini don't fit into her proposed lines of descent.
So her interpretation is not likely.
There have been about 5000 fossil seals found between Pleistocene and Miocene. None before that.
Since a seal with functional legs has been located in the Early Miocene, I think we now know why.
Koretsky: We don't have such material...There is not a time when we can find the missing link (between mustelid - skunk or otter-like animal -) and seals.
I would think not. The evidence, including genetics, shows a link between pinnipeds and then caniformia (bears and dogs).
I think you're in trouble.
See above. Surprise.
BTW, As this is the bats thread, where did you say the bats came from?
Onychonycteris finneyi. Or something very closely related to it.
