Posted on 03/13/2008 4:54:07 AM PDT by Renfield
They didn’t have porch lights, either. And no Zippos to light the flare a few times...
twisttheknifeping
Hmm... So, did the pterosaurs merely mate early and retain the sperm for reproduction later in their adult life, or did they lay their eggs and do the whole shebang before full adulthood?
The reason is that either scenario presents different problems from an evolutionary standpoint. They should probably answer these questions before posing wacky theories like this.
Paedosaurus?
Pterosaurs had sex as youths? God, I hope so. The idea of OLD pterosaurs having a flying F-— brings to mind a horrible image.
(Note: will someone post the obligatory photoshopped image of Helen Thomas as a pterosaur?)
Well, my dog had to be neutered by 6 months, due to being sexually mature by then, but was not fully grown until age 4 (mastiff). The females are supposed to be 2 yo before they are bred, because they need to be more mature in order to breed safely.
Chickens lay eggs at 6 months, but I doubt they can be fertile, they’re just little pullet eggs.
You’re right... It’s not clear at all (at least from this article) how they came to these conclusions about their sexual habits. I’m guessing (hoping?) there was more evidence that the reporter didn’t bother including either because they were lazy, or didn’t realize that it was an essential part of the explanation! LOL
The other thing that’s interesting is that if these animals had a life-span of only about 10 years, that would kind of “knock out” the theory that they were still “youths” at the time of sexual maturity. Compared to humans, yeah of course, but for animals? Ridiculous...
The day they can be so precise about the sex habits of an animal millions of years ago, they will know your sex habits of the past 24 hours, in your bedroom. These conjectures lead me to deeper UNBELIEF in the sanity of modern Darwinian science.
The problem with this wacky theory is it de-emphasizes full adulthood for the species, and survivability to old age is no longer an evolutionary plus. Essentially, this type of reproductive model would result in inevitable alteration of the species over a short period of time due to reproductive pressures, with an emphasis on mutations that expand or enhance the reproductive advantages of its youth. Features prominent in full grown adults such as size would become vestigial.
The only explanation for such over specialization that I can see is that the species had a complex social system where the full grown adults enhanced the reproductive advantages of the younger individuals by caring for, protecting, and feeding their offspring’s offspring and/or genetic descendants. But the gist is that the reproductive period would naturally increase over time as those who remain capable of passing on their genes the longest are more likely to have more offspring. Such changes in physiology over time would have other effects on the species later development.
I guess what I’m saying is that such a reproductive model is inherently unstable and any species which has such a model would either become extinct due to overspecialization or will become a candidate for inevitable and rapid evolutionary change... resulting in extinction for the originals.
Your comment makes sense to me. Thanks.
That photo is fake, right???
LOL!
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