crossposted from
unbossed
First, the anthropology.
Savage Minds.
is a collective web log devoted to both bringing anthropology to a wider audience as well as providing an online forum for discussing the latest developments in the field.
I found this blog while looking for more information on a brief news story on the language of the Aymara. Cognitive science, meet the angel of history - a discussion of recent articles awed by the discovery that the Aymara people in Bolivia refer to the past as in front of them and the future as behind them. Makes sense when you think about it, just a different sense than does English usage. The Aymara see the future as being that which is not seen, and we cannot see what is behind us. The past has been seen and can be seen in our minds, and things we see are before us.
So now, the past.
DigiMorph
DigiMorph - Digital Morphology has a huge library of digitized skeletons including 2D and 3D "visualizations of the internal and external structure of living and extinct vertebrates, and a growing number of 'invertebrates'". You can choose among the popular animals in the sidebar - alligators, dinosaurs, tapirs, horned lizards, bats, platypus and more - and see them in high resolution 3D as well as animations of slices of the specimens.
The site includes information about the animals habits and more. On the platypus site, for example, there is a discussion as to how monotremes (such as platypus or echnidas) marsupials (such as kangaroos, koalas, possums, wombats) and placentals (humans, dogs, whales) are related to one another. For a good explanation of these relationships, including photos, check this site. And to read about evolution of marsupials and plate tectonics, look here.
Tasmanian Tigers
The Tasmanian Tiger - now extinct - was not a tiger. It was - a kangaroo - sort of. Actually it looked like a tiger but was in the marsupial family. But more on that later.
This excellent website should be lots of fun for families to sit down and discuss. First, it has video and photos of Tasmanian Tigers and Wolves.
Second, it walks you through the story of their evolution and more.
It is, however, an excellent example of convergent evolution. This is the process by which rather distantly related species independently acquire similar characteristics while evolving in separate and sometimes varying ecosystems. This occurs as a result of adaptation to similar environments and ways of life. The thylacine's body shape approximately resembles that of the placental wolf because it is a cursorial predator which occupies a similar ecological niche. Apart from the notable differences in dentition, even the thylacine's skull structure superficially parallels that of a canid.
The last survivor of a very ancient and once diverse family of carnivorous marsupials, the thylacine is a truly amazing and beautiful mammal. Sadly, it is the victim of one of man's most atrocious acts of destruction toward the fauna of Australia. Out of misunderstanding, irrational fear and simply because it was perceived as a threat to economic interests, a genocidal assault was waged against the species. Thus, thousands of thylacines were destroyed by man during the 19th and early 20th centuries. By the time that this action was seen as the horrible tragedy that it truly was, the thylacine had been persecuted nearly to extinction.
link.
Another interesting example of convergent evolution from Down Under is the weta. Wetas look like huge grasshoppers with serious armor (or armour). New Zealand had no land mammals until the Maori arrived 1000 years ago bringing with them dogs and rats. As a result, the weta evolved to fill niches that in other places are filled by seed gathering mammals, such as rats and mice.
And before turning to fossils, don't forget to check out the rest of the Natural Worlds website. Be sure to scroll down to that very very very large bug, er, insect. This is, afterall, a post about science.
Scorpions
Most life here is not warm and fuzzy. And we're not just talking Dick Cheney. Check out The Scorpion Files!
More on fossil animals
This is for more serious science and fossil wonks. For a database of fossil mammals, check out Neogene of the Old World. You can learn where fossils of extinct mammals have been found.
Note: Java Runtime Enviroment (JRE) 1.4.x must be installed on your machine to open the interface. The website will download it for you. As an alternative, it will allow you to download a zipped excel file of prior databases. I could not get the current database to load properly. But you may have better luck and better skills than do I.