Abbie Smith is a graduate student studying the molecular and biochemical evolution of HIV within patients and within populations. She also studies epigenetic control of ERVs.
TimeTree is a public knowledge-base for information on the evolutionary timescale of life. A search utility allows exploration of the thousands of divergence times among organisms in the published literature. A tree-based (hierarchical) system is used to identify all published molecular time estimates bearing on the divergence of two chosen taxa, such as species, compute summary statistics, and present the results.You can type in some species names (or common names) and get an approximation of when those two species initially diverged!
For example:
Humans split from dogs ~97 mya.So we split from dogs and cats, before dogs and cats diverged from one another!Humans split from cats ~97 mya.
Dogs split from cats ~58 mya.
Life Science
Comments
B-b-but those numbers can't be true! According to the Bible, the Earth is only about 6,000 years old!
Posted by: Tommykey | June 11, 2009 11:03 AM
Tommykey:
Yeah. But they're Godyears and bear little or no relationship to ours.
--
Martin
Posted by: MartinDH | June 11, 2009 12:11 PM
That's news to you?
Seriously?
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | June 11, 2009 12:15 PM
Awesome link. Thanks!
Posted by: Iason Ouabache | June 11, 2009 12:19 PM
Pears/apples didn't work. :(
Posted by: aporeticus | June 11, 2009 12:22 PM
In addition to being a Condescending BioDick, I should also say thanks for that link. It's full of excellent current info on the phylogenies of lots and lots of organisms.
& fer Free!
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | June 11, 2009 1:00 PM
wow awesome!
Thanks so much for sharing this!
Posted by: Matthew | June 11, 2009 1:16 PM
Heh. My first thought was "cats & dogs", then I scroll down to see that Abbie kindly provided the answer.
I'm going to have to play with this with my kids.
Posted by: Ranson | June 11, 2009 1:23 PM
I call shenanigans. This thing has no information about when Republicans and reptiles diverged.
Oh, wait...
Posted by: Optimus Primate | June 11, 2009 1:27 PM
Buzzards and parrots 77.30 Mya
Very Cool Toy!
I will show it to my nieces this weekend.
Thank you.
Posted by: Prometheus | June 11, 2009 1:34 PM
This thing has no information about when Republicans and reptiles diverged.
Yeah, but if reptiles evolved from Republicans, why are there still Republicans around today? :-)
Posted by: Tommykey | June 11, 2009 1:38 PM
Humans and marmots 93.92 Mya
How come we don't talk gopher?
*spits*
Posted by: Prometheus | June 11, 2009 1:52 PM
This is going to be the most fun I have with my pants on for a solid month.
Posted by: Pete | June 11, 2009 2:01 PM
Must we compare Apples and oranges?
"Pears/apples didn't work. :("
I was going to suggest going to Wikipedia and find the genus name and put it in, but when I did it and got a no results. I guess we need a Pear genome project. For the record I tried Malus for apple and Pyrus for pear.
Posted by: a lurker | June 11, 2009 2:20 PM
That is such pure awesome and fun. :')
Posted by: Josie | June 11, 2009 2:38 PM
Yeah. I put in apple and pear and got no details, but it did resolve that it was malus and pyrus it was looking for.
I don't know why but my first search was bullfrog and maraschino cherry. This was a bit much but it got frog and cherry generally and they diverged 2.1 - 2.5 Bya.
Pretty much as unrelated as you get.
Posted by: eddie | June 11, 2009 2:44 PM
Slight correction:
The frog it actually found for me was in fact a Trypanosoma parasite of frogs. Weird, as I also asked for toad and got dozens of species.
Posted by: eddie | June 11, 2009 2:50 PM
It must be true if a computer program's output says it's true.
LOL.
Posted by: William Wallace | June 11, 2009 2:56 PM
The program is based on evidence from the scientific literature, unlike anything the creationists have to offer. It would be easy to set up, though, just have a list of species and one output link that says "Appeared instantly 6,000 years ago!"
LOL.
Posted by: James F | June 11, 2009 3:03 PM
The program is based on evidence from the scientific literature, unlike anything the creationists have to offer.
It also links you to all the scientific literature it used to figure out said answer!
Posted by: ERV | June 11, 2009 3:10 PM
oyster and carrot 1,717.00 Mya
wheeeeee
Posted by: Prometheus | June 11, 2009 3:11 PM
In that case... LOL
Thanks for playing. Don't you have a bridge you're supposed to be guarding somewhere?
Posted by: Optimus Primate | June 11, 2009 3:36 PM
Seems like time estimates hit the wall at 2.5bya
Query Taxa: Escherichia coli/Homo sapiens
Result Comparison Bacteria/Eukaryota
2,292.00 Mya (mean) 2,500.36 Mya (weighted mean)
Posted by: jim | June 11, 2009 3:39 PM
Well, I guess we can add computers to the list of things Limp Willy doesn't understand!
Posted by: LanceR, JSG | June 11, 2009 3:41 PM
Wallace, quit being a turd. If independent methods of evidence produce the same tree, and you do not want to accept it, that's your own prerogative.
Back to the OP: Fun!! But careful, y'all.
You have the potential to come up with biologically errant trees (I only briefly looked at the method).
Here's what I mean:
If you do:
Human-Dog 97
Mouse-Dog 97
Human-Mouse 93
So, it turns out that that tree is right, but had you used the weighted averages, the numbers would have been:
Human-Dog 98
Mouse-Dog 98
Human-Mouse 103
And that tree is wrong - mice and humans are more closely related than either is to dog.
There is actually an interesting story that explains the variation there, and it's a cute one if people want to think of the reason =)
Posted by: Jason | June 11, 2009 3:51 PM
Homo sapiens diverged from the walrus 97.4 million years ago. Bah! Rubbish! I ain't no kin to no walrus!
Posted by: The Curmudgeon | June 11, 2009 4:21 PM
I am the Walrus
Posted by: W. Kevin Vicklund | June 11, 2009 4:38 PM
I typed in Homo Sapien/ Ken Ham and got 7,899.99 MYA
Posted by: JD | June 11, 2009 4:41 PM
I typed in Ken Ham and a ham sandwich, and got "No detectable difference" errors. I think something may be miscalibrated on my end...
Let me check my notes...
Posted by: LanceR, JSG | June 11, 2009 4:45 PM
As long as we're talking about cats and dogs, PZ has a great post on having his cat shaved to keep down the shedding in his house. The comments are pretty good, too.
Posted by: Paul Lundgren | June 11, 2009 5:29 PM
So 58 mya dogs and cats were living together?* Was there mass hysteria?
Louis
* I know, I know, but I couldn't make the Ghostbusters joke in a biologically valid manner.
Posted by: Louis | June 11, 2009 6:16 PM
I feel neglected - no results for Bryozoa (nor Ectoprocta, which returns as Bryozoa -hooray). Brachiopoda are there, which are much less diverse and abundant (now, if not in the Paleozoic). The freshwater bryozoans are also a significant faunal component, particularly in water supply pipes.
I am NOT an Ectoproctologist.
Posted by: Phil Bock | June 11, 2009 6:24 PM
#27
Shut the f*ck up, Donny! V.I. Lenin. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!
Posted by: James F | June 11, 2009 6:53 PM
What the f*ck is he talking about, Dude?
Posted by: Optimus Primate | June 11, 2009 7:24 PM
Try as I might, I can't get an answer on PYGMIES + DWARFS.
Posted by: Ranson | June 12, 2009 6:45 AM
Hahaha. :) Of course if the machine reports the last suspected common ancestor the results are understandable although technically still not correct.
Running things through my english-to-idiot converter I get these statements:
1. One evening about 97MYA, a dog gave birth to a human (probably male)
2. On that same evening about 97MYA, a cat gave birth to a human (probably female)
3. On one evening about 58MYA, dogs gave birth to cats and cats gave birth to dogs
Obviously this all proves that there *is* a dog!
Posted by: MadScientist | June 12, 2009 7:34 AM
They are the Eggman?
Posted by: W. Kevin Vicklund | June 12, 2009 9:09 AM
I didn't get pygmy and dwarf so I tried pygmy loris and dwarf cactus. Again, no. But oris and cactus generally cave common ancestor 2.92Gya
Posted by: eddie | June 12, 2009 9:11 AM
Posted by: LanceR, JSG | June 12, 2009 9:19 AM
What's the cannibalism spread? So how many mya's is it before I no longer have to feel bad about my mobile food sources? I'm thinking 80. That still leaves hamburger at 92mya.
Posted by: scripto | June 12, 2009 9:32 AM
A crocoduck walked (crawled?) the earth approx. 230 Mya ago!
http://www.timetree.org/time_e_query.php?taxon_a=Crocodylidae&taxon_b=Anas+platyrhynchos&action=
Posted by: Lurky | June 12, 2009 10:24 AM
I recently seen pictures of an alleged crocoduck; with sharp teeth in big jaws, but with feathers and webbed feet. What would you call the animal with long tail, scaly skin and a beak?
A quackodile.
Posted by: eddie | June 12, 2009 12:58 PM
Dog and Bearberry:
1,423.80 Mya
(Bearberry was at the top of the list for the disambiguation of Bear)
Posted by: dNorrisM | June 12, 2009 3:20 PM