Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
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'God's' message in my dream was very different. It confirmed what I have come to believe — that we are here on earth to live life fully. It helped me respect myself, and stop feeling wrong for doing what felt right. When I consider some kind of life-force, I now believe that she/he/it supports me in being who I am. There are no easy answers and life can get tough at times. Yet despite the ambiguity we all need to plunge ahead and do it anyway. We can find the courage and discover great joy.
Marlene Winell, Leaving the Fold (Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 1993), pp. ix-x.
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« Wookieepedia? | Main | Pogonophilia or pogonophobia? »
Category: Organisms
Posted on: March 21, 2007 12:17 PM, by PZ Myers
Some people do…and those people might enjoy Gary Kaiser's The Inner Bird, a site that is promoting his book of the same name, and also contains interesting tidbits of information about comparative anatomy and avian evolution.
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Comments
Gary Kaiser states that birds are digitigrade while mammals are plantigrade. I know humans are certainly plantigrade, but aren't most mammals digitigrade? Or does he simply mean that all birds are digitigrade, whereas the primitive mammalian condition is to be plantigrade, and many mammals retain this trait?
Posted by: Sylvanite | March 21, 2007 1:03 PM
Excellent point, Sylvanite! I was rather excited by the subject matter of this site. I just hope there aren't a whole lot of other errors like this.
Posted by: Diego | March 21, 2007 1:13 PM
I like to photograph birds, but I have to admit that my knowledge of the 'inner bird' is entirely unfettered by scientific knowledge. (Quackery. you could call it.)
However, can anybody point me to a place where I can identify a (possibly at least partly fake) skull? 'Possibly fake' because three horns - four if you count the one on the nose - seem a little excessive, so it could have been, um, intelligently designed. Unfortunately (or not) I did not buy the skull (at a flea market today), so only have the photographs for identification.
It is not a bird, and I don't mean to hijack this comments thread. I just don't know where else to ask where people might be likely to know.
Posted by: BadAunt | March 21, 2007 1:47 PM
Bah. Any monkey worth his salt would give one of those birds a beak flip!
Posted by: CoffeeJedi | March 21, 2007 2:11 PM
BadAunt:
If you asked me (not a scientist by any stretch) I would say it looks like a dragon skull. and fake (obviously). but cool!
Posted by: jba | March 21, 2007 2:23 PM
Are you really sure? I mean ... couldn't it be a REAL dragon skull?
(Damn. I was really hoping it was at least partly real.)
Posted by: BadAunt | March 21, 2007 2:30 PM
BadAunt, I can identify it.
$19.99, available at most Spencer's Gifts, or seasonal Halloween stores at your local shopping mall.
Posted by: CoffeeJedi | March 21, 2007 2:36 PM
i was just thinking about bird evolution last night, while running.
does anyone know what the most 'primitive' (in the way that a coelacanth is considered a primitive fish) bird alive today is ?
Posted by: cleek | March 22, 2007 9:53 AM
"Skull"? It doesn't look like bone in the first place. It looks like plastic. It doesn't even look like it was meant to be taken seriously.
First of all, please define "primitive". That word is less and less used because it can mean anything you want.
Latimeria is special because it's the only surviving coelacanth, and because that is a group that's more closely related to us + the lungfish than to normal ( = ray-finned) fish.
All living birds are either paleognaths or neognaths, and the former group includes the ratites (ostriches, rheas etc.) and the tinamous. Maybe that counts.
Posted by: David Marjanović | March 24, 2007 10:49 AM