The Hidden Branch of Evolution

by Billy Bob Jordan
Billy Bob Jordan

Dr. Billy Bob Jordan is the new Professor Emeritus of Evolutionary Biology at The Contumacious University in Contumacious, WL. Dr. Jordan was previously the director of President Armstrong’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, president of the American Scientician Confederation, and vice-president of the Apiological Hobbyist’s Society. He is not the Dr. Billy Bob Jordan convicted of bigamy during 1987 in Tallahassee, FL.

Over 520 million years ago a common ancestor gave rise to the chordates, creatures as varied as the shark, the trout, the frog, the gecko, the pigeon, the gopher, the sea squirt, and the lamprey. The first six animals represent a contemporary class of subphylum Vertebrata: Chondrichthyes (the cartilaginous fish), Osteichtyes (the bony fishes), Amphibia (amphibians), Reptilia (the reptiles), Aves (the birds), and Mammalia (the mammals). Along with Vertebrata, there are the Urochordata (animals such as sea squirts) and the Cephalochordata (the lancelets).

The Urochordata are truly strange. This subphylum consists almost entirely of the sea squirt, which got its name because it continuously pumps water into one body opening and out of another. Fossil evidence of the sea squirts is hard to come by because of their soft bodies. They look nothing like any other chordates, but in their larval stage exhibit all the characteristics of chordates: pharyngeal slits, dorsal nerve chord, notochord, and a post-anal tail.

Cephalochordata are not represented very well in the fossil record either, for they have few hard parts to their bodies. The lancelets, the prime example of the subphylum, are small, fishlike animals without real vertebrae, a primitive brain and poorly-developed senses. In some parts of the world they are of extreme importance for ocean farming.

Chordates first appeared towards the beginning of the Cambrian Era. Earlier, during a time known as the Precambrian Explosion, a multitude of phyla appeared, including the ancestors of the chordates. The earliest chordates probably resembled the lancelet in many respects and exhibited all of the characteristics of modern chordates.

Within the chordates soon appeared the jawless fishes, the earliest chordate form known to exist. These primitive animals are still represented today in lampreys and hagfishes. Soon, in geologic terms, the familiar amphibians were crawling about on land. Amphibians are ectothermic and generally spend much of their time on land, but are dependent upon large amounts of moisture found in an extremely wet environment such as a rainforest.

This dependence is due to three factors. The first, and most important, is that amphibians are not amniotes, that is they do not produce a protective membrane around their embryos. Secondly, amphibian young go through a metamorphosis wherein their forms are generally dependent upon the presence of copious amounts of water. Finally, most amphibians require the presence of a good amount of water to keep their skin hydrated and to respire.

From the amphibians came the reptiles, who were the first Chordates to walk away from the water. Reptiles are difficult to define and many biologists tend to define them by what they are not, rather than their relationships. Because they represent a class which gave rise to two other extant classes, this difficulty is understandable. Still, most reptiles are ectothermic, oviparous, scaled creatures.

Scary Lamprey
What a Mouthful: A lamprey. Of course, not all of the chordates are this friggin’ ugly.

Now, the reptiles bring up an interesting evolutionary development. From them arose the snake and the chameleon, but also other creatures familiar to the reader. From Reptilia arose to the therapsids, animals possessing traits of both reptiles and the later mammals which descended from them. As well, the bird descends from reptiles of the late Mesozoic Era, specifically during the late Jurassic period. Every time you see a sparrow, you’re actually looking at a relative of the dinosaur.

With the great extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period, the multitude of ecological niches which only the great reptiles were able to compete for were now opened to the birds and the weak, snuffling, mouse-like mammals. With this development, no further classes of chordate have arisen in the last 65 million years. If one were to make an estimate of when the evolution of a new class were to take place based upon the geological record, one might assume such a class appearing anywhere from 40 to 75 million years in the future.

While chordates do not represent the sheer number of individual species represented in the Arthropoda, their representatives range across the globe, from the most extreme to the most temperate environments and from the most familiar appearances to the strangest. Sea squirts, lions, echidnas, lampreys, vultures; all are our wonderful and strange cousins. Some, like the birds, arose as nearly as late as our own mammals. Some, like the jawless fishes are the oldest and alien to us. Some creep, some swim. Many might breathe air, while many others breathe water. Amongst us we share traits as diverse as skin or scales, eggs or live birth, feet or fins, even eyes or no eyes.

No matter our diverse biology, be it mongoose, shark, ball python, sparrow, or poison arrow frog we all share one trait: chordates are cool.

Katie Stalin: Out and About

Katie in Paris

Paris, France, E.U.– Paris is many things to many different people. To some it’s the city of lights, the city of love; a place of history still haunted by oppressive Sun Kings, underfed and murderous peasants and hunchbacks of Notre Dame. For me that’s great because I came to Paris to see some history, some love and, I hope, at least a couple of hunchbacks.

For a bit I strolled down the Champs-Elysées; gawked at the giant Arc de Triomphe and then took a ride up to the top of the Eiffel Tower, which is a hundred year old monument now functioning as a radio tower. Of course, this city is also famous for its cafes, which is where they serve coffee, which they call café.

I ended up in a café because the Paris bus map looks like spaghetti. That’s pretty odd, right? Because spaghetti’s Italian. I took a seat outside on the sidewalk at the nearest café and the waiter brought me a glass of wine which I promptly downed.

See, I was thirsty. Luckily he brought a lot more. The French love their wine. Then he brought me this awful crap called anisette. It’s like Robitussin without the fun of having a
cough. Though the waiter was a bit rude when I complained about it, he changed his attitude attitude when I pointed out that America saved France’s ass back in World War II.

Realizing that, but not for America, he’d be speaking German, he apologized for his behavior and brought me a couple more bottles of wine on the house. Fortunately he didn’t bring up any of that French navy baloney from the American Revolution, otherwise I might have had to smack the taste out of his mouth. There’s no sense of joy or accomplishment in smacking the French.

Trust me.

Soon after I was joined by a couple of young guys from England; Charles and Dogbody, who said they were in Paris for business. We had some more wine and they offered to let me help them with their latest business enterprise. All I had to do was show up at the Louvre the next day at opening time. They even offered to give me a thousand euros, which was disappointing until I learned that euros could be traded in for real money.

The next day was bright and I got up and headed right toward the Louvre, which is a famous museum filled with old stuff. Dogbody walked by, but didn’t say hello, all he did was drop a folded piece of paper on the bench next to me and then he just walked away. The paper had my instructions on it. All I had to do was wait for their signal and then run up to the guards; I was supposed to cry and act hysterical and tell them I couldn’t find my little baby.

Sure enough, a half hour later, I heard the alarm; that was my signal. So, I ran up to the guards and cried and cried and told them I couldn’t find my baby. I did a really good job, you know “I’d like to thank the Academy.” The guards were really confused and didn’t know what do. After a bit I just slid off and then got an ice cream cone because you just can’t find nachos in this city. Funny, they’ve got snails but no nachos. And they call French cuisine famous.

Back at the hotel, Charles and Dogbody stopped by with a couple of friends of theirs. Yeah, they totally had brought some champagne and we had a few toasts. The bubbles tickled my nose, but the champagne was great. They gave me a thousand euros in a brown envelope and showed me the painting they got from the Louvre. It was this little thing with an ugly lady in it and her smile was kind of weird looking. It wasn’t even new. I didn’t think it was that good a painting, but they seemed to like it. Then we turned on the news and guess what? We were all actually on the news. It was in French, so I wasn’t sure what it was about, but still it’s nice to be a little famous.

Back at Charles de Gaulle airport, I had a couple more glasses of wine and said a quick goodbye to the city of Paris. My trip here was fun and I’m glad I got to see so many famous landmarks and meet so many nice people. But, let me tell you, it’ll be nice to get back to America and have a big glass of vin, oh wait, I mean wine, eat some tacos, have an order of Mucho Grande Supremo Nachos with extra jalapenos and cheese at Marcos Ribeira’s Outhouse, and then make out with the cute busboy. See ya’ll later.

Historigon: Clauduary 2006

historigon

During This Month in History:

  • 2005 AD: Axes & Alleys’ offices enter their second month without a secretary. Almost every staff member has started coming unglued by this point and documentation of the period is scant.
  • 2004 AD: President Dick Armstrong wins the Radford, Virginia Bird Call Competition for a third year straight when his near-perfect Alaskan gray mallard call scores an astonishing 9.4.
  • 1982 AD: After declaring war on the decadent West, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China jointly invade India in retaliation for the destruction of a Soviet transport in the Black Sea by a British destroyer.
  • 1971 AD: Pop-Artist Andy Warhol sits in his underpants eating cornflakes and watching cartoons for two and a half days straight.
  • 1947 AD: Howard Hughes accidentally impregnates a crashed Dran visitor, who gives birth to a male child in 1948. With his origin covered up by the Illuminati, the infant William Gibson is adopted by a couple in South Carolina, who never reveal the truth about his past.
  • 1943 AD: General Douglas MacArthur defeats Chiang Kai Shek in a bout of bare-knuckled pugilism, enabling U.S. Army Private First Class Phillip Donner to win $4,000.
  • 1912 AD: Suffragette Elizabeth “Kitty” Standon dons a five foot diameter, eighty-three stone hat which causes her to topple over before she can ever chain herself to a railing.
  • 1899 AD: Jakob Schwartzkinderpopologan invented the cathode ray cone, an almost completely non-functional predecessor to the tubes found in most modern televisions.
  • 1865 AD: Corporal Ebenezer Johnson becomes the last person to die in the Civil War when he chokes on a peanut eight minutes before Lee’s famous surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.
  • 1854 AD: Future president Horace B. Borden spends five days inconsolable over the loss of his favorite pair of shoes. The shoes are eventually found behind a divan and all ends well.
  • 1721 AD: Sir Seymour Dial Button invents the knob.
  • 1603 AD: Skippy Sellase, a close relative of the Ethiopian Emperor, unwisely points out that the empire’s not terribly impressive.
  • 1532 AD: Hungarian explorer Jan Troplovich becomes the 328th person to discover the New World.
  • 1333 AD: Nuctuhualpayo, an ingenious Incan man, creates a wheeled cart for transporting goods. His village is not impressed. Several weeks later he attaches the cart to an alpaca, creating the New World’s first coach. He is incessantly mocked for the invention’s ridiculous appearance and quickly abandons it.
  • 1066 AD: William the Bastard of Normandy, on his way to board a boat steps on a frog, causing him to careen into a nearby fruit stand where his head gets stuck in a large melon, blinding him so that he steps on a hoe which smacks him in the head, knocking him back into a pile of cow manure which subsequently catches on fire. He is able to turn this into a good omen by proclaiming “Shit, I hate the Anglo-Saxons.”
  • 89 BC: Sulla and Marius both arrive at an orgy wearing the same toga style in an event which would eventually prove disastrous for the Roman Republic.
  • 1290 BC: Yatkub ben Gelafa, formerly part of the Exodus made famous by God’s The Bible, sneaks back into Egypt to retrieve his favorite loin cloth.
  • 3280 BC: Shokindush of Ur invents the wheel after his ninth unsuccessful attempt to invent the donut.
  • 14102 BC: While others around him are slowly getting to know wolves, sheep, goats and oxen a little better, Trufgor thinks frogs could be mighty useful friends.