Evolution in action ?

[EternalOptimist]

I always wondered if I would live long enough to see a fusion reactor, life on other planets, man on mars.

I also wanted to see a species actually evolve into something different


could this be it ?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7840404.stm

[TimberWolf]

D. valgum [a species of dung beetle] no longer dines on faeces. Instead, the nocturnal predator prefers to decapitate live prey with its armour "teeth" and then devour their insides.

It couldn't wait for the dung to appear in its own time. A bit like people that start eating before everyone is sitting at the table, except worse.

[expat]

I always wondered if I would live long enough to see a fusion reactor, life on other planets, man on mars.

I also wanted to see a species actually evolve into something different


could this be it ?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7840404.stm

Interesting.

I wanted to see all those things too. I followed the Apollo program and watched the landing on the Moon in 1969, and thought, We're Off! Mars next!

But it never happened. Everything was an anticlimax after that.


Come to think of it, that was the year I first got in a woman's pants. It's all been downhill from then. Or as De Gaulle said in his New Year message, a Happy Soixante-Neuf to you all.

[Mich the Tester]

Worryingly, Deltochilum Valgum's taste in food is actually improving while that of Homo Sapiens is getting worse. Compare this to the millions of western people whose idea of food is McD's or even worse, and it looks like this might be another area where humans are going backward in a kind of 'reverse evolution' process.

Of course, beetles reproduce much faster than humans, so it may be that within only a small number of generations we are overtaken gastronomically, intellectually and technologically by dung beetles. Some people already have been and one of them spent eight years as President of the USA.

[Spacecadet]

I always wondered if I would live long enough to see a fusion reactor, life on other planets, man on mars.

I also wanted to see a species actually evolve into something different


could this be it ?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7840404.stm

I think it's only classed as a different species when interbreeding with the "old species" is either impossible or produces a hybrid animal

[Doggy Styles]

It couldn't wait for the dung to appear in its own time. A bit like people that start eating before everyone is sitting at the table, except worse.

I heard about this on the radio yesterday. It's partial to giant millipedes, who are competitors for the dung.

[expat]

I think it's only classed as a different species when interbreeding with the "old species" is either impossible or produces a hybrid animal

Indeed, but this may be the start of speciation, since the new lot will start living a different life from the old lot and may become unable to interbreed.

I feel that way about some of the people I went to school with.

[EternalOptimist]

I think it's only classed as a different species when interbreeding with the "old species" is either impossible or produces a hybrid animal

Thats the point exactly. At the moment it is not a new species, as you say. It is a mutation, or a variant, still capable of interbreeding with the 'stem' creatures.

If those 'stem' creatures died out (presumably through lack of tulipe) we would be left seeing the evolutionary process in action. This is exactly how 'survival of the fittest' is supposed to work.

[ace00]

Come to think of it, that was the year I first got in a woman's pants. It's all been downhill from then.

Indeed. Starts with the pants, then the silky underwear, high heels. But whatever makes you happy. Just make sure to think about it before you get the Op.

[expat]

Indeed. Starts with the pants, then the silky underwear, high heels. But whatever makes you happy. Just make sure to think about it before you get the Op.

she was in them at the time