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Post by Mira on Jun 1, 2009 22:01:48 GMT -5
Looks like you were too busy playing Final Fantasy in your childhood to play the much superior RPG I just referenced.
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Post by Undecided on Jun 1, 2009 23:05:18 GMT -5
Puh-lease. The only ones that ever actually went extinct were those glitchy paper chainlink fence things, because they fixed them later.
And by the way, you all should get an exalt.
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Post by Sigmaleph on Jun 2, 2009 14:47:44 GMT -5
Mattias, what the fuck are you talking about? This is a Kabuto This is a horseshoe crab See it yet?
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Post by Mira on Jun 2, 2009 14:59:25 GMT -5
I don't know who to shoot!
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jun 9, 2009 18:05:19 GMT -5
Pokemon? Snatched a friend's DS the other day, proclaiming that I was "gonna play me some Pokemon." It was even lamer than watching HER play it.
Current: Umm...they both "k" sounds in their names...?
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Post by Sigmaleph on Jun 9, 2009 19:20:55 GMT -5
Yes. The hard C is exactly what I meant.
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jun 9, 2009 19:40:50 GMT -5
Yes. The hard C is exactly what I meant. I KNEW IT! Can I have a cookie, now?
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Post by Sigmaleph on Jun 9, 2009 21:26:28 GMT -5
...sure. Have your cookie
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jun 10, 2009 2:15:31 GMT -5
Yay!
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Post by Vene on Jun 10, 2009 2:27:51 GMT -5
I wouldn't eat the cookie. It was probably made from the crab. And I don't mean the meat.
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Post by Sigmaleph on Jun 10, 2009 10:19:16 GMT -5
Oh Vene, you are so silly. Here, have a cookie.
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Post by Vene on Jun 10, 2009 12:01:14 GMT -5
*throws the cookie before it can explode*
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Post by lonelocust on Jun 11, 2009 1:04:10 GMT -5
There are tons of taxa that were thought to be extinct and were found alive today (though generally, like the coelacanth, the currently-living species have observable differences than the fossil variety), or that were thought to be extinct, then later fossils were found with the same varieties of creatures before they disappear again from the record, presumably still extinct today, but needing their date of extinction to be amended. These are called Lazarus Taxa and Zombie Taxa respectively. And though fundies like to jump on such things, remember there are orders of magnitude more extinct species of which we have fossil record than there are Lazarus taxa.
Remember that because an inconceivably tiny fraction of creatures that live and die become fossils, the fossil record is necessarily incomplete. We will indefinitely continue finding more pieces of it, but it will certainly be "incomplete" even if we one day find every extant fossil on the earth. It becomes more and more complete as we find more of it, but by the fundie definition of "complete" i.e. an example of every species to every live found, it will never be complete.
I also had never heard that horseshoe crabs were ever thought to be extinct, though there are examples of now-extinct horseshoe crab types. The deal with them is that the oldest fossil examples that are clearly in the family of horseshoe crabs are really fucking old indeed. Or at least, that's all I know, and a quick Googling doesn't show much more.
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tempus
Full Member
Alien Ant Farmer
Posts: 212
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Post by tempus on Jun 11, 2009 8:03:22 GMT -5
The coelecanth and horseshoe crab are both considered "living fossils"--creatures that have changed very little for hundreds of millions of years. Horseshoe crabs are the closest living relatives of trilobites. Other than that, I have no idea what you might be referring to. According to some, these guys are also really close cousins of the humble trilobite: (No reason, I just think they're sort of neat.)
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Post by booley on Jun 16, 2009 1:13:35 GMT -5
... Edit: Yeah, I can't find anything, either. *Shrug.* Guess it'll always remain a mystery. I am wondering, though. The copper-based blood is common among mollusks, but not among mammals. Are there any reasons why mammals didn't evolve that way? Edit II: Or, rather, would it be problematic if a mammal DID have coper-based blood? Put simply probably because the ancestors of vertebrates didn't have copper based blood. I used to think that was because hemocyanin (copper blood ) was less efficient but after going to Wiki I found it's actually quite good in low oxygen environments. But vertebrates had other advantages: internal skeletons (obviously) and true lungs. Their closest competitors were arachnids (like scorpions) who think also don't use hemocyanin (arachnids and insects use a wide variety of oxygen binders) Not to mention plants had already established themselves on land so there was plenty of oxygen to go around. The carboniferous actually had a lot more atmospheric oxygen then today. There was no pressing need for a slightly better oxygen binder then hemoglobin could do the job. If mollusks had had skeletons or scorpions lungs instead of book lungs evolution would have worked out differently. But apparently evolution goes with what works, not necessarily what's the very best.
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