The answer is probably readily apparent, but I thought that I'd put this picture up without identifying it straight away. What do you think it's from? I have no doubt most people will get it right, but ithis image reminds me one of the most interesting mechanisms for evolutionary change for another species.
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Is that a Bonobo skull? I'm curious about these mechanisms now...
Alan Greenspan?
Is this from the "cartoon skeletons" collection? It'd look hominid save for the big buck teeth; with those, I swear it looks like the skull of Bugs Bunny would look :D
Fascinating at any rate (and I have to say I learn more interesting things everyday just watching your blog) :D
Looks like a juvenile, whatever it is. Those teeth aren't normal--they're jutting out beyond the lower jaw.
Neandertal, maybe?
Juvenile Orangutan is my guess.
Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace (Flashback to the chiclet scene).
: D
P.S. Take a look at my blog, I debunk Answers in Genesis:
http://aigbusted.blogspot.com
-Ryan
Other than that it's a member of the pongid + hominid clade, I'm not totally sure on this one. I don't think it's an orangutan as their orbits are taller and more rectangular (even in juveniles). So I think it's chimp or bonobo.. what the hell, I'll say chimp. Go on.. it's an orang isn't it?
I suppose I've kept you all in suspense for long enough; this is a skull of a juvenile chimpanzee. I haven't found a skull of a juvenile gorilla or orang for comparison, but the overall shape of the skull, orbits, and incisor teeth are the main clues (or at least what my eye is most drawn to). For those of you who've seen the exhibit, you'll recall that this skeleton is juxtaposed next to the skeleton of a juvenile human, the skull of Homo sapiens having a much highly vaulted and large head for body size.
The evolutionary mechanism I alluded to was neoteny, or the idea that our species are almost "adult juveniles," changes in development causing us to retain characteristics commonly seen in juvenile apes like chimpanzees. The famous Taung Skull, studied by Raymond Dart, really drives this hypothesis home, and it seems that as the overall head size of our ancestors increased the offspring had to be born earlier so that they didn't become stuck in the birth canal, this constraint having effects on the rest of our body and changing the tempo and mode of our growth rates. As I've recently said in a post about divergence of forms within species, when we talk about evolution we're not just talking about problems or constraints faced by adults. Especially in our own line of descent, what happens early on in our lives (from conception to birth) seems to have influenced much of how we came to be as we are.
Yes - high five!
According to Dr. Holtz's new book, sauropods are ontogenic prosauropods! I love ontogeny. Is there a word for the reverse? You know...growing out of...neoteny...?
You mean neotenic prosauropods? There is a word for the opposite - peramorphy is the exaggeration of ontogenetically adult characteristics in the mature form. It is often suggested as a mechanism in the development of e.g. more ossified and/or armoured taxa from lighter ancestors, such as happened in sturgeons.
Properly speaking, the presence of juvenile characters in the adult is paedomorphy. Paedomorphy can come about through neoteny (development is slowed down) or progenesis (sexual maturity is sped up).