Timeline for Reasons why living fossils exist?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 30, 2015 at 8:34 | vote | accept | Jayachandran | ||
| Mar 11, 2015 at 6:59 | comment | added | r2d2 | There's a paleontologist from the University of Chicago called David Raup who wrote a book on extinction: "The disturbing reality is that for none of the thousands of well-documented extinctions in the geologic past do we have a solid explanation of why the extinction occurred... We have many proposals in specific cases, of course: ... These are all plausible scenarios, but no matter how plausible, they cannot be shown to be true beyond reasonable doubt. Equally plausible alternative scenarios can be invented with ease". so it seems we may have to admit our ignorance in this | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 8:54 | answer | added | Jack Aidley | timeline score: 6 | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 8:34 | history | protected | Chris♦ | ||
| Mar 10, 2015 at 3:10 | comment | added | Jayachandran | @Teige: " perhaps the niche it occupies isn't very conducive to speciation". Your words seems marvelous but HOW ? | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 2:59 | comment | added | Jayachandran | @WYSIWYG: However selection pressure can favor morphological changes by selecting particular traits. More selection pressure is exerted on a morphological trait makes it more susceptible to change. So lesser selection pressure could make the morphology immutable. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 18:13 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackBiology/status/574996474171297792 | ||
| Mar 9, 2015 at 14:30 | answer | added | Williham Totland | timeline score: 7 | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 14:22 | comment | added | Teige | I think living fossil is a fairly meaningless term, since there will be fossils of extinct species out there resembling many living species. Species which are the sole survivor of a clade were simply the most successful, I suppose. If you are wondering: why has a species remained the sole survivor of a clade for a long time without speciating again - perhaps the niche it occupies isn't very conducive to speciation, e.g. mass synchronised mating. Perhaps we just don't recognise the different species of e.g. horseshoe crab which exist, for what they are. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 14:21 | comment | added | Rodrigo | Of course the selection pressure changes the morphology. These are just two different ways of saying the same thing. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 14:01 | history | edited | WYSIWYG | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
grammar
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| Mar 9, 2015 at 14:00 | comment | added | WYSIWYG | "Is there not enough selection pressure exerted on this species in order to force it to change morphologically"…… This is not how evolution happens. They don't adopt a morphology because of selection pressure. The pressure selects certain traits which may include a particular morphology. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 13:57 | comment | added | WYSIWYG | I don't think there is a reason to it. The other species in the clade just perished. If we kill all apes and monkeys (just keep one body in a museum) then we will become living fossils too. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 10:35 | comment | added | Jayachandran | @aandreev: The term "living fossil" describes an organism which is alive today and it has great resemblance with some ancient creature(which is luckily fossilized). Every fossil we found are remains of living organisms and not remains of fossil :) | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 10:27 | comment | added | aaaaa says reinstate Monica | wasn't every fossil once a living fossil? | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 10:15 | history | edited | AliceD♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
deleted 2 characters in body; edited title
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| Mar 9, 2015 at 8:50 | history | edited | AliceD♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
typo corrections
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| Mar 9, 2015 at 8:20 | history | asked | Jayachandran | CC BY-SA 3.0 |