Bats Could Fly Before They Had 'Radar'
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Feb 13, 4:12 AM (ET)
By MALCOLM RITTER
NEW YORK (AP) - A fossil found in Wyoming has apparently resolved a long-standing question about when bats gained their radar-like ability to navigate and locate airborne insects at night. The answer: after they started flying.
The discovery revealed the most primitive bat known, from a previously unrecognized species that lived some 25.5 million years ago.
Its skeleton shows it could fly, but that it lacked a series of bony features associated with "echolocation," the ability to emit high-pitched sounds and then hear them bounce back from objects and prey, researchers said.
Until now, all the early known fossil bats showed evidence of both flying and echolocating, so they couldn't reveal which ability came first, said researcher Nancy Simmons.
Her team's research appears in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Simmons chairs the vertebrate zoology division at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
The early bat's wingspan was nearly a foot, just a bit smaller than that of today's big brown bat, she said. Its teeth show it ate insects, which it evidently plucked off surfaces after seeing, smelling or hearing them, she said. Simmons said she suspects the bat was active at night, but she noted there's no evidence for that.
The creature was unusual for having a claw on all five fingers rather than just one or two. Researchers dubbed it "Onychonycteridae finneyi," meaning "clawed bat." The name honors Bonnie Finney, the commercial collector who found the fossil in 2003.
Two specimens of the creature have been recovered. "These outstanding fossils considerably advance our understanding of bat evolution," researcher John Speakman of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland wrote in a Nature commentary.
Re: new fossil helps solve which evolved first in bats, wings or echoloction.
format_quote Originally Posted by Muezzin
So, for a period of time, there were bats flying around, randomly bumping into things like a Specsavers customer? Heh.
Nope. They had eyes that presumably worked well enough... at least until the 'sonar' became the primary sense and they were no longer necessary.
While Onychonycteris makes it clear that ancient bats could fly without the ability to sense prey, scientists are still wondering if the mammals flew in the dark. John Speakman, the chair of zoology at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom who wrote a commentary on the study, has a theory.
"The possibility is there that bats were originally [awake during the day] and were forced into the nocturnal niche by the appearance of avian predator species some 50 to 60 million years ago," Speakman said.
Both birds and mammals increased dramatically during this time period, which followed the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. New nocturnal lifestyles might have led some bats to develop echolocation, while others may have relied on increased night vision to get around.
Unfortunately existing Onychonycteris fossils will shed no light on this question. "The eye sockets were crushed, so it can't be determined if they were enlarged as in other nocturnal, non-echolocating animals," Speakman explained. Despite this setback, however, the fossils represent a breakthrough in the understanding of bat evolution.
Re: new fossil helps solve which evolved first in bats, wings or echoloction.
one day after millions of years is it possible that people see the fossils of humans/gorrilas/monkeys/chimps/baboons and the likes and try to find an evolutionary connection?
that would be funny lol
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My tears testify that i have a heart
yet i feel me and shaytan never part
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Re: new fossil helps solve which evolved first in bats, wings or echoloction.
format_quote Originally Posted by IbnAbdulHakim
one day after millions of years is it possible that people see the fossils of humans/gorrilas/monkeys/chimps/baboons and the likes and try to find an evolutionary connection?
that would be funny lol
Best to keep them in the group we came from and the group that split off entirely.
Re: new fossil helps solve which evolved first in bats, wings or echoloction.
format_quote Originally Posted by IbnAbdulHakim
^ lol so wait, according to evolution we're closer to gorrila's then monkeys?
btw when are the rest of the monkeys going to evolve? :confused: ? how comes its taking them so long?!
It's complicated to try and explain the monkey part, but yes, we're closer to apes than monkeys.
The Common Ancestor split into apes and monkeys. The apes then split into lesser apes and great apes, the lesser apes then evolved into modern lesser apes and the great apes then evolved into modern great apes and human ancestors, then the human ancestor evolved into early humans such as homo habilis, homo erectus and such and the modern great apes evolved into more modern great apes, and so on.
In the future there will be more modern humans and more modern great apes.
So basically, the apes of today aren't the apes that were around then, they are descended from the apes just as we are. Same with the monkeys.
Re: new fossil helps solve which evolved first in bats, wings or echoloction.
format_quote Originally Posted by IbnAbdulHakim
^ lol so wait, according to evolution we're closer to gorrila's then monkeys?
btw when are the rest of the monkeys going to evolve? :confused: ? how comes its taking them so long?!
It's taking them no longer than it is us. As Devolutionist explained we and they are two different evolutionary branches from a common ancestor. There is no reason for monkeys to evolve into a more human like species unless that is beneficial to their survival - if they can evolve fast enough which, considering the major threat to their survival is the wonderful species that is mankind, is probably unlikely.
Who knows what either homo sapiens, or assorted ape species, might have evolved into in several million years time if we don't manage to annihilate all life on earth first? Mankind really can't be the best God and/or the universe can do... maybe that something will be something wonderful and true advertisement for life as the chief marvel of the Universe.
Re: new fossil helps solve which evolved first in bats, wings or echoloction.
Hey please stop with those craps!!!
Evolution is propaganda!
He is Allah - the Creator, the Maker, the Giver of Form. To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names. Everything in the heavens and Earth glorifies Him. He is the Almighty, the All-Wise.
(Qur'an, 59:24)
Re: new fossil helps solve which evolved first in bats, wings or echoloction.
ok ive skim read quite a bit of it but i dont understand why it must be that the neandarthal is what we have evolved from (according to evolution theory), cant it be either:
1. a different species which lived at a time but couldnt survive
2. humans who were less intelligent
[edit] Homo neanderthalensis
H. neanderthalensis lived from about 250,000 to as recent as 30,000 years ago. Also proposed as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis: there is ongoing debate over whether the 'Neanderthal Man' was a separate species, Homo neanderthalensis, or a subspecies of H. sapiens.[17] While the debate remains unsettled, evidence from mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal DNA sequencing indicates that little or no gene flow occurred between H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens, and, therefore, the two were separate species.[18] In 1997, Dr. Mark Stoneking, then an associate professor of anthropology at Pennsylvania State University, stated: "These results [based on mitochondrial DNA extracted from Neanderthal bone] indicate that Neanderthals did not contribute mitochondrial DNA to modern humans… Neanderthals are not our ancestors." Subsequent investigation of a second source of Neanderthal DNA supported these findings.[19] However, supporters of the multiregional hypothesis point to recent studies indicating non-African nuclear DNA heritage dating to one mya,[20] although the reliability of these studies has been questioned.[21]
also the hobbit part was interesting lol, i always wondered where lord of the rings took it from.
finally does adaptation of biological features mean evolution? for example a change in height/number of teeth/shape of ears etc
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My tears testify that i have a heart
yet i feel me and shaytan never part
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Re: new fossil helps solve which evolved first in bats, wings or echoloction.
Neither creationism nor evolution can be passed off as fact at present. Both are proposed theories with their own respective problems, and perhaps neither is true and there is a 3rd explanation to be found. Until then, we do what we can with what we have, so to speak.
Re: new fossil helps solve which evolved first in bats, wings or echoloction.
format_quote Originally Posted by IbnAbdulHakim
can it be passed off as a fact?
Id say youre delving into the realm of philosophy at this point. Evolution explains the great majority of the data in a number of different fields. Its the main reason why new vaccines need to be created every year for old diseases.
Re: new fossil helps solve which evolved first in bats, wings or echoloction.
format_quote Originally Posted by Isambard
Id say youre delving into the realm of philosophy at this point. Evolution explains the great majority of the data in a number of different fields. Its the main reason why new vaccines need to be created every year for old diseases.
viruses, bacteria, diseases and plagues have been around all the time. and we know they constantly change etc and the body's immune system has to fight it off with the help of vaccines etc. If we can find old illnesses via aecheology or paleontology and find vaccines for that then thats great (im assuming thats what you meant?!) but this doesnt help prove that one thing directly formed into another.
to me the more i think about it, the more it looks like they simply were extinct species.
This is ofcourse my bias towards faith speaking, but to me it makes great sense.
i could read all about evolution (and ive read a bit... not much) and i still dont think it would change this view, so what is it EXACTLY which makes you so sure that you biologically transformed?!
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My tears testify that i have a heart
yet i feel me and shaytan never part
-
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