I’m still writing about whales (and dolphins).

On reading articles on the internet around and about the subject of macroevolution, it dawned on me that the idea of mammals removing back to the sea (from whence their remote ancestors came) produces a rather interesting effect – that a strict separation between land life and sea life no longer holds true.

There has been traced a possible connection between cetaceans and the hippopotamus.

The Dolphin-Hippo Connection by Susan Lumpkin
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/publications/zoogoer/2003/5/dolphin_hippoconnection.cfm

Go look



http://www.greatestjournal.com http://www.photosofcalifornia.com/free_picture_dolphin.aspx
http://school.discovery.com

Mammals evolved on terra firma ...

While I was reading articles on the internet, this statement took me by surprise.
"Mammals evolved on the land".
I knew that. Didn’t I? To be honest I’d never given it any thought. Which is likely why the statement took me by surprise.
But of course they did.
However my eyes are newly open and I’m looking at life kind from a different place after I became aware – the other day - that there is scientific evidence to prove that predecessors of whales (and dolphins actually) once lived outside of the oceans.
Although all along there was a clue to this - in the dictionary.
Possibly any dictionary will offer a similar definition, and in the Oxford it says, besides humans, mammals "include dogs, rabbits and whales".
Keeping in mind the assertion that mammals evolved on the land, there is an implied message in that short list that the biology that gives (humans, dogs, rabbits), whales - and dolphins - their shared "mammalian-ship", today, was evolved on land. By which we can infer that those creatures that predeceased whales (and dolphins) were once land mammals.

A Whale of a Tale

This afternoon is the last day of my holiday and tomorrow I head back into the salt mines so I’m really working hard at relaxing now.
I was reading the following in the Reader’s Digest Book of Facts and suddenly I found myself on a book buying expedition.
The idea of an Evolutionary U-Turn grabbed me by the throat, read this ~
"The ancestors of whales were once land animals. Scientific examination of whale skeletons indicates that they have a vestigial pelvis or hipbone, proving that whales once possessed legs. The ancestors of whales, like the ancestors of all animals, came originally from the sea. But whales began returning to the sea about 70 million years ago, steadily losing the physical characteristics of land mammals.
Their front legs changed into flippers, their rear legs disappeared, their bodies acquired a thick insulating layer of blubber and their nostrils moved from the snout to the top of the head to become a blowhole.
It is not known why whales returned to the sea, but it may have been because food was more plentiful there or because enemies were fewer.
--------------
So what, you might say?
I didn’t say that, I put my imagination to work. But I felt suddenly blind as if I were stumbling around in the dark. The pictures wouldn’t come.
I didn’t have a problem with the idea of creatures evolving, that is old stuff for me and I do believe that the trend of lifekind is to change, to evolve.
It was just hard for me to think about a creature sustaining a painstaking biological change to adapt to living on the land only to revert back at some point to becoming, once again, a sea dweller.
And it’s not why where the problem lay, and it may not even be how - because I’m really quite used to not knowing anything about a lot of "stuff".
I think it boils down to an assumption I made based on a prejudice I have. That having lungs is a sign of greater sophistication and complexity; so a surer sign of intelligence and superiority than having gills.
Hell bells, I thought. I’m something that there’s not a word for, yet.
I’m a sea creature-ist!
For years I’ve clearly seen in my mind’s eye, a one way lineal march of creatures moving from the sea and progressing to live on the land, I perceived that, from there, a "natural" extension would be for any terrestial life-form worth its salt to find the means to move from the land and travel into space - and the final frontier – not necessarily humans – I’m not an animal-ist.
I just didn’t expect that any creature would turn tail, and retreat back into the sea!
And yet the crazy thing about that vision is, a land creature is no better adapted to living in space than a sea creature would be. I think we can probably learn every bit as much from whales as they can learn from us.
Anyway to soothe my troubled mind, I went on the net, the biggest playground cum market-place ever.
I found, "At the Water's Edge, Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea".
Yes, I thought, I would like to know about the "…engines of macroevolution .." and "… the transformation of body shapes across millions of years."
So I have now bought the book and I’ll blog you about it .. later.

Holidays come, holidays go

In April this year we had a reprise almost of April last year, same month different cyclones, and both weather systems did us the courtesy of not coming too close when laden with destructive forces, but Monica, as Ingrid had done, still left its mark on people's minds. Well, okay, on my mind at least. There were those who said they didn't know what the fuss was about.

Move on another few weeks and we were still getting intermittent rain in May which is not that usual but, come the end of May, the humidity eased and the temperatures sunk suddenly below the 30 degree mark through some days and the 20 degree mark through some nights. There was no doubt left, we were into the Dry season and it was a welcome respite.

This was when I started my holiday. 2+ weeks later, and tomorrow is my last day and I'm kind of sad about that

But it's been bloody marvelous, I can't tell you how relaxed I feel .... sighhhhhh

Blog Jogger

For me, blogging has become the new walk in the park, as I ambulate through my thoughts to sort out a heading to write about.

In fact I've been blogging for 4 days now (naturally stopping to eat, shower and sleep), but 4 days is the sum total of my blogging career, and already my family, comprising hubby and cat, have become quite accustomed to me hunkered over my keyboard, venting this or that stream of thought through my flying fingers. Happily they leave me to it. Mostly.

I have often wanted to keep a diary.

I have two distinct problems with actual diary-keeping.

Diaries, by their very nature, are books with real sheets of paper in them that require real penmanship to make a mark on them. After many years of typing on keyboards, I can't manually write a sentence onto a sheet of paper without making a complete dogs breakfast of the page. My manual writing skills are woeful, ergo, though I have bought a couple of diaries over time with the express intention of exploring the highways and by-ways that make up my mind on a frequent basis (stored in the one place, ie. the diary), I haven't got much beyond Week 1, or even Day 1, because, well, I think - it's not just the words - but good presentation is a big part of finding pleasure in the writing experience, and I have trouble making my handwriting readable even if I use a pencil.

In fact I wouldn't be surprised that the more popular blog web sites will be those that pay close attention to the outward appearance of blogs, in their finished forms. We bloggers want to look good (well, don't we?).

Diaries are also traditionally full of deep, dark and furtive secrets. And it's not a lack of secrets why my life has been diary-free. I'm not sure that I would commit my secrets to paper anyway. Nor to screen, come to that. But were I to do so, and after sweating, armed with a pen, over a page for some hours, while attempting to make my scrawly handwriting legible, and failing miserably ~ as if that's not bad enough, given that the diary is loaded down with secrets, who but me will get to read it?

Please tell me the point of writing something down ~ not in the dramatic spirit of exorcising demons from the mind and then ritualistically ripping the paper to shreds afterwards ~ but from the viewpoint of keeping those writings locked away sometimes for years (and diaries often have those dinky little ornate keys to warn of secrets being kept therein, do they not?) which no-one else will read, at least until the mortal coil has been shuffled off.

So read away. There may not be secrets in my blog but, you will find me there.