Day 10: One Bone, Two Bones, Blob

Today's class was like the beginning of the post-apocolyptic era. It's when the movie starts and you first see the wreckage of whatever thing that almost wiped humanity completely off the planet and the characters have to figure out how to live.

 Our class was pretty much like that today. We got our tests back.

I don't even want to talk about my grade. Let's just leave it at "I screwed up and will spend more time preparing for it next time around."

Well, it wasn't too bad. But it was bad.

At least we went over everything during class (thank you Mr. Quick!!)

We then proceeded to dive into our next unit: evolution. For homework, we were to read chapters from a book called Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin, which was about Shubin's discovery of a transition species between fish and amphibians. The book also went in depth to talk about the evolution of land animals and how some of the earliest land animals had homogenous (similar) bone structure to us humans.

We took a short field trip about a good 500 or so feet to the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology to see a model of a Tiktaalic.

Pictures!!

This species was the first animal to "walk" on land. Notice the quotes around walk, because although the Titaalik had limbs like ours, it sort of dragged itself around. This animal was capable of living both on land and in the water. It has both characteristics of fish and amphibians.

Fish

• gills
• webbed fins
• tail
• scales
• conical head
• eyes on side of head

Amphibians

• limbs
• lungs
• flat head
• eyes on top of head
• neck
• wrist

Tiktaalik

• gills
• webbed fins
• limbs
• wrist
• neck
• flat head
• tail
•  eyes on top of head
• scales

The Tiktaalik was proof that animals evolved from water to land and bridged the gap between fish and amphibians. It also brought to light the evolution of limbs. 

Now, I'm quoting my biology teacher when I describe limbs so it's the most accurate scientific description of an arm. "One bone, two bones, blob."

That'll need some explaining though. As animals our limb structure consists of one bone (the humerus) two bones, (radius and ulna) and the blob (your wrist aka carpals and your fingers aka digits). To get to the one bone two bone blob thing, the species had to evolve from water creatures to land creatures like this. And the Tiktaalik was the bridge between the two.

This shows the evolution from water to land and the evolution from fin to wrist. 

And that was basically our class today. Still recovering from that test, but onto evolution, which makes slightly more sense than chemistry!

Until next time.

Now, onto deep philosophical thoughts of transcendentalism with Ralph Waldo Emerson (save me).