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A new year’s resolution and tribute to the Father of science.

A new year’s resolution and tribute to the Father of science.

I was in the military, on guard duty in the jungles of Central America one night. I remember observing, under the yellow tinge of a sodium light, a female praying mantis and its young (or smaller partner?). I spent a while watching them and how such a complex set of decisions (about eating, moving, interacting, protecting, sleeping, mating, defence etc.) were held in such a tiny brain. They would only live for a year, at most, (from being born – no idea how old these were) and I wondered if they
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Lots of things new under the sun

Motivated by our valued member, Charles Cameron from a recent post on a huge, man sized leaf discovery. Palm leaves can grow to 20m though! To my knowledge, there is no site or authority, one can go or be directed to, that logs or registers new species. What usually happens, is that dedicated databases of taxa, like the Reptile database for example, keep a look out in the literature and in related news articles. There is no obligation for anyone to register anything anywhere. So, amateur natu
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Can chickens fly? Is there a 5th flight club member?

This is in support of/response/addition to a Facebook post, where I asked if chickens can fly or not. It's not black and white as it depends on definitions, but it’s a great example of an inherited trait being lost or artificially designed, under our noses. At what point is a species classed as having or not having trait/attribute y? On our Explorer, the clade nodes are visually represented by whether they are extinct or not, by way of the extinct symbol. In the past, some volunteer enthusi
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The limits of evolution.

Does evolution include any/every biological change or advancement? For example, genes can be transferred directly (including horizontally) across evolutionary branches, bi-passing the standard, more well-known/popular method. We (human beings) are fundamentally composed of different organisms, many are species in themselves, and we probably contain less eukaryote than eukaryote. Does hybridisation count as evolution? Laboratory or artificial interference – does that count? If so, where is i
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Have we lost our perspective, marbles, interest or morals?

Have we lost our perspective, marbles, interest or morals?

Some places are dangerous to live. Australia has 100 venomous snakes, plus dangerous spiders, cone snails, blue ringed octopus, jellyfish, sharks, crocodiles, sting rays, stonefish, scorpions and centipedes, many of which can be life threatening. It’s even got a venomous mammal that is dangerous (and the female lays eggs and the male has multiple penis heads). So you’d expect a pretty high human body count… right? Before proceeding, consider this. Just ONE snake species, in ONE other c
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If x (as x), then y.

If x (as x), then y.

Mosquitos are the biggest people killers in the animal kingdom, with more deaths than all other creatures combined. Primates are the second largest by the way. There was a documentary on the difficulty in getting drugs/vaccines/medicines to far away, hard to reach, inhospitable poor places where people were dying, and governments had no money. In one scene, in Africa, the problem of money, logistics, distribution and transportation had seemed to have been overcome… Was that a coke b
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The sacrosanct nature of verification.

The sacrosanct nature of verification.

In 1988 in the jungles of Belize, I discovered a new species of snake. It may have been the most venomous on the continent. But no such animal has reference to, or exhibits my name in any literature. The fact that I may indeed have discovered it and that it may be genuinely new to science, is not relevant without certain criteria, and very strict criteria at that. When I was a theology student, I was very keen to, ‘more formally’ investigate miracles, and specifically, healing miracles. I h
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Names, reputations, wasps and stuff.

Names, reputations, wasps and stuff.

Posts on the Facebook group about reputations, animal names, and wasps in particular caused this ramble, but you might get something, somewhere, from it, whoever you are. And there’s a one question quiz at the end.   Vampire bats, vampire squid, Tyrannosaurus rex, devil fish, devil’s coach horse, hellbender, spiny lumpsucker, satanic leaf-tailed gecko and countless local names for, ‘evil’ creatures. Reputations are  for a reason, if not always good or justified reasons or they are merely s
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Brief introduction into limbs/appendages. Arm, leg or mobility device?

Brief introduction into limbs/appendages. Arm, leg or mobility device?

All primates (apart from humans) have hands AND feet for grasping. Most primates also have opposable thumbs (4 exceptions) on hands and feet. Opposable thumbs are not limited to primates or even mammals. So, monkeys can be said to have 4 arms/legs or 2 arms and 2 legs. So, what defines a leg or an arm, especially if both are, (or can be) used for walking and grasping? Do kangaroos have 4 legs or two? This slender loris? The key problem is, that we tend to have an original represen
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When all is one and one is all

When all is one and one is all

I may address the areas I only briefly mention another time. Many representations in life, be it an example, a parable, a chart or a system or classification are like Plato’s cave analogy and don’t or can’t fully or accurately represent reality or the thing it purports to reveal. A colourful pretty spreadsheet chart bears little resemblance to a bank vault or cheese shop, but it portrays what needs to be done or how well things are in the associated business, in a way that people can v
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Extinction rebellion. Tribute to Emmanuel P.

Is intelligence and length of life an advantageous or a disadvantageous factor, evolutionarily? If an animal has a long life, it can (perhaps) reproduce more/for longer, but if factors affecting evolution, like the environment, change quickly, then genetic changes are slower and it may not survive the changes, especially if such changes occur within an individual's lifetime. If an animal has a short life expectancy, the speed of progressive change (in its progeny) will be faster and ab
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Whales in the UK

The largest animal to have ever lived is the Sibbald’s Rorquel (as you all no doubt know). This (see attached image) is the mature foetus of a Fin whale, the second longest whale. This image clearly shows the tooth buds on this baleen whale, which no longer forms enamel and the tooth remnants are reabsorbed and don’t break the skin. Like all mammals, whales have hair. They also have legs in formation like land mammals, some even weight bearing. Unlike land mammals, they give birth to their young
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More Axolotls

More Axolotls.   The axolotl (water monster) is one of my favourite animals. Despite what expert, ‘Linda Adkins’ says in her book, ‘Keeping Axolotls’, it is not a reptile. They are in a genus of 32 salamanders; salamanders are newts, (Caudata) which are amphibians, along with frogs and toads (Anura) and the wider caecilians (Gymnophiona). Other orders existed in the past. It’s from freshwater lakes and caves in Mexico and considered critically endangered on the IUCN register, but the
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Ape-man

Ape-man. There is a chicken/egg misunderstanding from all sides about evolution, that because, we (humans for example) evolved from other apes, monkeys (similiformes), primates and mammals etc. that this means a non-human once gave birth to a human.  This has many implications beyond biology of course. But this is in fact not the case. If you were to go back and observe actual real time events, this is a scenario you would and could not experience. Taxonomically of course, the egg came
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Welcome to the Phylogeny Explorer Project forums, blogsite.

Welcome to the Phylogeny Explorer Project forums, blogsite.

This is currently open, only to project contributors, be it sponsors, certified members, donors, those who work on the project in some way and specific invited guests. We invite you and/or anyone else who you feel might want to help/support us, the entire education programme and our non-profit work, and have access to this and upcoming exclusive benefits, to please do so, we really appreciate it. The Website: phylogenyexplorerproject.com or Forums: phylogenyexplorer.org both have clear signs to
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Aron Ra stabbed... and other news

Aron Ra stabbed... and other news

I was talking to one of our members, Phil in Slack, and he informed me that Aron Ra had been stabbed in a protest in London! Being not the sort of thing that (at least), some would joke about, I took it seriously and couldn’t see anything on basic internet searches, so I went to his twitter account. Aron has been filming (in a non-PEP acting role for a full length film). Which was just as well, as I had arranged to meet him the next day. I met up with Aron earlier today (Wednesday 29th May)
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Hybrids. Buffalo/Crocodile.

Hybrids. Buffalo/Crocodile.

Hybrids. Buffalo/Crocodile. Take a look at this image. A crocodile/buffalo hybrid. It must be, because it is so obvious and shows significant attributes of both, and this (untouched, unedited) picture is photographic evidence and it says so and has been declared in the reliable media who have reputations to protect. Case closed… right? Given these multiple lines of evidence, see how obvious it is from the photo alone, that it is true. Many people would seem perfectly justified, as bein
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Phylogeny

Phylogeny

Introduction. Phylogeny (tribe producing): There are a lot of similar terms ore methods to describe systematic ordering of life and the associated models used. Phylograms, cladograms, dendrograms, phenegrams, taximetrics, taxonomy, evolution etc.  Some are used interchangeably or as synonyms or are misused. In fact,  many experts can’t agree and it can be somewhat confusing. There will be more clarification and discussion on this elsewhere within the Forums. For now, I’ll leave you to
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Fundraising target one - met!! Thank you!

Fundraising target one - met!! Thank you!

We are so grateful to our wonderful members for supporting us (with time and/or money) and enabling the project to move forward and grow. Thank you, so much. This very (new) Forum exists because of you, and we now have a full range of social media from which to communicate with, ready for launch as a platform for bigger and better things, and getting good science out there. Our primary costs have been software, which includes monthly payments, so we really rely upon those monthly commi
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