Evolution or Adaptation?
September 4th 2010 22:27
Reptiles seem to be the most adaptable creatures on earth. This should come as no surprise since they have been around for thousands of years before man and other animals. Reptiles can actually live well in almost any environment, except the extreme cold.
Adapting to other environments can sometimes mean finding a way to assure the survival of the species as a whole. This is where reptiles are masters. A lizard is going from laying eggs to giving live birth.
From the article:
But individuals of the same species living in the state's higher, colder mountains are almost all giving birth to live young.
(As they expand their territory into a colder climate, egg laying may kill off the species. This adaptation is regressing to a primitive survival mechanism.)
Only two other modern reptiles—another skink species and a European lizard—use both types of reproduction. (Related: "Virgin Birth Expected at Christmas—By Komodo Dragon.")
(I wrote about this on this blog!)
Evolutionary records shows that nearly a hundred reptile lineages have independently made the transition from egg-laying to live birth in the past, and today about 20 percent of all living snakes and lizards give birth to live young only.
(Still, because the biology of reptiles is identical, if it happens to one it may happen to all. We just don't see it because it doesn't occur over night.)
Just like the Komodo Dragon regressed to a primitive mechanism that is common in some reptiles called Parthenogenesis. This is where a female can lay a fertile egg without a male present. The thing is that all the newborns will be female.
I think that scientists should call evolution the creation of a new species from a primitive species. Instead they try to confuse the general population by calling adaptation a type of evolution. When the skink produces a Komodo Dragon, then we have evolution!
Adapting to other environments can sometimes mean finding a way to assure the survival of the species as a whole. This is where reptiles are masters. A lizard is going from laying eggs to giving live birth.
From the article:
But individuals of the same species living in the state's higher, colder mountains are almost all giving birth to live young.
(As they expand their territory into a colder climate, egg laying may kill off the species. This adaptation is regressing to a primitive survival mechanism.)
Only two other modern reptiles—another skink species and a European lizard—use both types of reproduction. (Related: "Virgin Birth Expected at Christmas—By Komodo Dragon.")
(I wrote about this on this blog!)
Evolutionary records shows that nearly a hundred reptile lineages have independently made the transition from egg-laying to live birth in the past, and today about 20 percent of all living snakes and lizards give birth to live young only.
(Still, because the biology of reptiles is identical, if it happens to one it may happen to all. We just don't see it because it doesn't occur over night.)
Just like the Komodo Dragon regressed to a primitive mechanism that is common in some reptiles called Parthenogenesis. This is where a female can lay a fertile egg without a male present. The thing is that all the newborns will be female.
I think that scientists should call evolution the creation of a new species from a primitive species. Instead they try to confuse the general population by calling adaptation a type of evolution. When the skink produces a Komodo Dragon, then we have evolution!
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