“Extremely ancient” genus stays put 150 million years

_{Denyse O'Leary

May 6, 2011

stasis}

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branched wood horsetail, blunt tpped horsetail — Anne Pratt Flowering Plants of Great Britain, Grasses, Sedges and Ferns and their Allies frederick warne and co., london

From ScienceDaily (May 5, 2011),we learn more about “if it ain’t broke, don’t …” Horsetail grass decidedly ain’t broke: “Horsetail Plant Developed Successful Set of Tools for Extreme Environments – For Millions of Years”

The authors discovered that in many ways the morphology and anatomy of this fossilized Equisetum is indistinguishable from those of species living today in two subgenera, Equisetum and Hippochaete. For example, it was evergreen, grew upright in a single straight stem, and had a double endodermis. Yet, there were some features that did not fit with any extant or fossil species of Equisetum — thus justifying the erection of a new species: Equisetum thermale.”Equisetum thermale appears to be the oldest record of the genus Equisetum and at the very least, records that anatomically, essentially modern Equisetum-like horsetails have a history extending back to the Late Jurassic,” said Channing. Indeed, these findings support the idea that Equisetum is an extremely ancient genus that has undergone little evolutionary innovation over the last 150 million years.

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Comments

Proponentist: "I guess that’s how the origin of species works. A species has some features that don’t fit with other species – “thus justifying” it’s existence." === Now you know why it's so easy for Evolutionists[especially of white origin] to look[with materialistic eyes of faith] at people from Africa or Aboriginal Australia and view them as nothing more than inferior sub-species of Europeans.Eocene_{May 7, 2011
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I wonder what it does for your career when you can say you discovered a new species.
Not nearly as much as if you can say you actually observed a new species evolve from another.Mung_{May 6, 2011
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I wonder what it does for your career when you can say you discovered a new species.tragic mishap_{May 6, 2011
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Mung said, I believe in jest: 'Modern versions of this plant must be absolutely chock full of junk DNA.' Actually ancient DNA also exhibits extreme stasis in those instances where scientists have been able to measure it: notes: Though it is impossible to reconstruct the DNA of the earliest bacteria fossils, scientists find in the fossil record, and compare them to their descendants of today, there are many ancient bacteria spores recovered and 'revived' from salt crystals and amber crystals which have been compared to their living descendants of today. Some bacterium spores, in salt crystals, dating back as far as 250 million years have been revived, had their DNA sequenced, and compared to their offspring of today (Vreeland RH, 2000 Nature). To the disbelieving shock of many scientists, both ancient and modern bacteria were found to have the almost same exact DNA sequence. The Paradox of the "Ancient" Bacterium Which Contains "Modern" Protein-Coding Genes: “Almost without exception, bacteria isolated from ancient material have proven to closely resemble modern bacteria at both morphological and molecular levels.” Heather Maughan*, C. William Birky Jr., Wayne L. Nicholson, William D. Rosenzweig§ and Russell H. Vreeland ; http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/19/9/1637 These following studies, by Dr. Cano on ancient bacteria, preceded Dr. Vreeland's work: “Raul J. Cano and Monica K. Borucki discovered the bacteria preserved within the abdomens of insects encased in pieces of amber. In the last 4 years, they have revived more than 1,000 types of bacteria and microorganisms — some dating back as far as 135 million years ago, during the age of the dinosaurs.,,, In October 2000, another research group used many of the techniques developed by Cano’s lab to revive 250-million-year-old bacteria from spores trapped in salt crystals. With this additional evidence, it now seems that the “impossible” is true.” http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=281961 Revival and identification of bacterial spores in 25- to 40-million-year-old Dominican amber Dr. Cano and his former graduate student Dr. Monica K. Borucki said that they had found slight but significant differences between the DNA of the ancient, 25-40 million year old amber-sealed Bacillus sphaericus and that of its modern counterpart,(thus ruling out that it is a modern contaminant, yet at the same time confounding materialists, since the change is not nearly as great as evolution's 'genetic drift' theory requires.) http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/268/5213/1060 Dr. Cano's work on ancient bacteria came in for intense scrutiny since it did not conform to Darwinian predictions, and since people found it hard to believe you could revive something that was millions of years old. Yet Dr. Cano has been vindicated: “After the onslaught of publicity and worldwide attention (and scrutiny) after the publication of our discovery in Science, there have been, as expected, a considerable number of challenges to our claims, but in this case, the scientific method has smiled on us. There have been at least three independent verifications of the isolation of a living microorganism from amber." https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/reductionist-predictions-always-fail/comment-page-3/#comment-357693 ---------------- Building 429 - Listen to the Sound live at 94.9 KLTY - Music Videos http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=FB902JNUbornagain77_{May 6, 2011
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Yet, there were some features that did not fit with any extant or fossil species of Equisetum -- thus justifying the erection of a new species: Equisetum thermale.
I guess that’s how the origin of species works. A species has some features that don’t fit with other species – “thus justifying” it’s existence. The evolutionary community does a good job in justifying the reasons for organisms to exist. If organisms have different features, then it’s OK for them to belong to a different species. If not, then they have to belong to an existing species – or perhaps they won’t have any justification for their existence at all. Horsetails luckily avoided that fate.Proponentist_{May 6, 2011
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Modern versions of this plant must be absolutely chock full of junk DNA.Mung_{May 6, 2011
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