"Newer Species than us?" Topic

Now if you look at some "classic" art work of evolution, they seem to narrow as it nears the top, with us on the top alone, like we are the newest and "best" like new coke or something.

But homo sapines are now mabye over 200 000 years old, logic says that ALOT of other species of animal and plants are newer then us. 200 000 isn't that new, even the wolf is only 300 000 years old.

So how many species do you think have evloved since us? And whch do you think it is?

Hi

The chart is about humans, actually there are billions of new species that have evolved in the last quarter million.

You know of some first hand. The reason that the first flu shot didn't make you immune to all flu.

R

The Flu is a virus, and technacly not even alive, bacteria while alive is not an aninmal nor plant it's in it's own domain.

When it comes to animals I would think thousands of new species of ahropods would evolve each month, as we only know about 10% of all insect species, it would logical to think that many new ones show up quite often

Do new dog breeds count?

Dog is one species, or a subspecies of the grey wolf depending on who you ask.

As all Dogs can produce fertile offsping with eachother and even with the wolf. They are considerd the same species.

A Donkey and horse can produce offspring(mule) but is not normaly fertile (alltho a few reporded cases of mules having offspring)
So they are classified as diffrent species(not only by that fact, but also based on genetics and anatomy)

Hmmm, so teenagers aren't their own species? Who would have guessed.

Last time I checked teenagers are quite good at producing offspring, and fertile at that

Maybe some of the crpto critters that are being found, but we'd need to do some genetic workups to see if they're actually older than us or not.

"And whch do you think it is?"

Almost certainly the most recent is a beetle. As I understand it, most of Earth's species are some sort or other of beetle.

"So they are classified as diffrent species"

Ring species are even more interesting. In "Pilgram's Tail" Dawkins writes of a lake in California where at one end there are two different species of Salamander – not capable of reproduction, but very similar in appearance. As you go around the lake, each is able to reproduce with the salamanders clockwise and counterclockwise of it all the way around, except at that one end.

Species is a convenient concept, and works a lot of the time, but each individual is completely genetically unique and the idea of species simply abstracts the fact that many are sufficiently compatable to be able to reproduce.

Yes that is true, we humans are almost obsessed with classifing everything, so we kind have to have diffrent species or we go insane.

But in the grand grand picture we are all the same biological machines. we share DNA with all animals on the planet and even plants.

The polar bear is supposed to be a relatively young species, having evolved from the brown bear sometime in the (if I remember correctly) the last 80,000 to 100,000 years.

The cichlid fishes in various East African lakes have been studied extensively, and there are several species in Lake Nabugabo which are unique to it. The lake became isolated from neighbouring lakes about 4000 years ago, so all those species must be less than 4000 years old.

How about this as a contender?

link

A new species of finch evolving since 1982 – though it actually happened in a year.

Hi

This month's SciAm has an article disscussing this. Insists that the Austalian rabbit has evolved from british rabbit root stock enough to meet the conditions that is is considered a new species. mentions your finch as well.

Rocky

If we assume Homo Sapiens is 200,000 years old, then we would expect an exceptionally small number of new species to have evolved, since we are dealing with an exceptionally small period of time.

So, finches, rabbits, and cichlids notwithstanding you would do best to look at bacteria. Unfortunately, the concept of species kind of breaks down with bacteria, as all the little critters seem to be able to exchange bits of DNA amongst themselves.

Also, the concept of speciation falls apart with the viruses. While they technically may not be alive, it is more important that they never exchange genetic material between themselves. They can only replicate by commandeering the DNA and RNA synthesis mechanisms of other species.

That's why you hear the scientists use the loosely defined term "strain", than the more rigorously defined term "species".

Not so cut and dry is it?

Ralph

Finches turning into finches; rabbits turning into rabbits; bacteria turning into bacteria; chiclids turning into chiclids; viruses turning into viruses.

Where is evoluion in that? It's just natural selection at work thinning out the gene pool.

A bacterium turning into say a sponge or something; now that woud be "evolution" at work, and that sort of change and the information increase it requires has never been scientifically observed or documented – never.

Finches turning into finches; rabbits turning into rabbits; bacteria turning into bacteria; chiclids turning into chiclids; viruses turning into viruses.

Where is evoluion in that?

Spoken by someone unfamiliar with the definition of evolution (or Evoluion for that matter) :^).

….that sort of change and the information increase it requires has never been scientifically observed or documented – never.

Well, since no one has seen first hand or scientifically documented an ancient Etruscan warrior first hand, I guess they don't exist either.

No one has ever observed the Earth flying around the Sun for an entire year either. Does that make the Theory of Heliocentrism untrue also?

Ralph

Hi

And who observed God when he parted the waters?

R

Just to point out, we have so so so many transisional fossils from fish to amphibian, amphibian to reptile and reptile like mammals, and reptiles(dino's) into birds, and mammal like reptiles into mammals.

We have apes turing into humans(tho technacly we are still apes) we have wolf like animals turing into whales ect. ect. ect. ect.

There are litterly more transitional fossils then we can count and name