Evolution Intelligent Design stasis

You wouldn’t think crocs had a complex history but they do

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Alligator in Myakka River State Park, Florida/© Michele Hogan

From ScienceDaily:

Previous research has pointed to crocodiles and alligators starting with a land-based ancestor some 200 million years ago and then moving to fresh water, becoming the semi-aquatic ambush predators they are today.

But a new analysis, published online today in the journal Scientific Reports, offers a different story. Modern crocodiles and alligators came from a variety of surroundings beginning in the early Jurassic Period, and various species occupied a host of ecosystems over time, including land, estuarine, freshwater and marine.

As University of Iowa researcher and study co-author Christopher Brochu says, “Crocodiles are not living fossils. Transitions between land, sea, and freshwater were more frequent than we thought, and the transitions were not always land-to-freshwater or freshwater-to-marine.” Paper. (open access) – Eric W. Wilberg, Alan H. Turner, Christopher A. Brochu. Evolutionary structure and timing of major habitat shifts in Crocodylomorpha. Scientific Reports, 2019; 9 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-36795-1
More.

Actually, Dr. Brochu is mistaken. Crocodiles are still “living fossils” because they are largely unchanged over many environments. We think the term “durable species” is a better descriptor for all such species because it evokes the same characteristic—they are largely unchanged over a very long period—but the term is not itself an apparent contradiction in terms.

Essentially, crocodilians are highly adaptable.

See also: Convergent Evolution Of Crocodile And Dolphin Skull Shapes

Crocodile’s eyes fine-tuned for lurking

Someone noticed the alligator’s second jaw joint

and

Stasis: Life goes on but evolution does not happen

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5 Replies to “You wouldn’t think crocs had a complex history but they do”

  1. 1
    Pearlman says:
    January 30, 2019 at 8:43 pm

    Nice, Per the RCCF framework for the strongest science we find 25M to 200M +/- aligns with the 1656 anno mundi ‘Mabul’ mass extinction impacts year event, that was the catalyst for the onset of The ice ages that lasted 1656 to 1996 anno mundi, (3783 to 4123 YA not 10k to 25M YA) so aligns w/ scriptural narrative and YeC timeline.
    reference: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B077Q4KB9V

  2. 2
    Mung says:
    January 31, 2019 at 10:07 am

    Another croc for Young Earth Creationists?

  3. 3
    ET says:
    January 31, 2019 at 10:33 am

    Dean from Ohio/ Pearlman- Serious question- How “young” is the young in YEC?

    for 99 cents I can give the script a read- RCCF? I paid more for “Starlight and Time”…

    And why doesn’t the BBC headline read – “alligators taking back what the white, over-privileged, stole from them”

  4. 4
    ET says:
    February 2, 2019 at 10:13 am

    Thanks Dean- I never saw the Bible- OT- as a clear and concise genealogy. So I don’t adhere to Bishop Ussher’s timeline.

  5. 5
    ET says:
    February 2, 2019 at 2:56 pm

    Yes, “and it was evening and it was morning”- without a Sun: Judaism and the age of the earth

    As regards the past, Rabbi Abahu states at the beginning of Bereishet Rabbah that the words “and it was evening, and it was morning” (in the apparent absence of the sun) indicate that “there was a series of epochs before then; the Holy One created worlds and destroyed them, approving some and not others.”

    The Kabbalists expanded upon this statement and revealed that this process is repeated seven times, each Shemita achieving greater perfection than the last…They also tell us that we are now in the midst of the fourth of these great cycles of perfection…[Editor’s note: Interestingly, many paleontologists also consider there to have been four eras: the Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic.]

    Then there are the civilizations of the Indus valley and Sumer- both existed 6,000 years ago. The aboriginals of Australia have an oral history going back tens of thousands of years.

    God is true, but men wrote the Bible and men have translated and interpreted it, most often to suit their own needs, wants and desires

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