Posted on 12/03/2003 4:53:26 PM PST by Pharmboy
LONDON (Reuters) - Fossils discovered in Ethiopia's highlands are a missing piece in the puzzle of how African mammals evolved, a team of international scientists said on Wednesday.
Little is known about what happened to mammals between 24 million to 32 million years ago, when Africa and Arabia were still joined together in a single continent.
But the remains of ancestors of modern-day elephants and other animals, unearthed by the team of U.S. and Ethiopian scientists 27 million years on, provide some answers.
"We show that some of these very primitive forms continue to live through the missing years, and then during that period as well, some new forms evolved -- these would be the ancestors of modern elephants," said Dr John Kappelman, who headed the team.
The find included several types of proboscideans, distant relatives of elephants, and fossils from the arsinoithere, a rhinoceros-like creature that had two huge bony horns on its snout and was about 7 feet high at the shoulder.
"It continues to amaze me that we don't have more from this interval of time. We are talking about an enormous continent," said Kappelman, who is based at the University of Texas at Austin.
Scientists had thought arsinoithere had disappeared much earlier but the discovery showed it managed to survive through the missing years. The fossils from the new species found in Ethiopia are the largest, and at 27 million years old, the youngest discovered so far.
"If this animal was still alive today it would be the central attraction at the zoo," Tab Rasmussen, a paleontologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri who worked on the project, said in a statement.
Many of the major fossil finds in Ethiopia are from the Rift Valley. But Kappelman and colleagues in the United States and at Ethiopia's National Science Foundation (news - web sites) and Addis Ababa University concentrated on a different area in the northwestern part of the country.
Using high-resolution satellite images to scour a remote area where others had not looked before, his team found the remains in sedimentary rocks about 6,600 feet above sea level.
What an charming metaphor.
Seems accurate to me
Oh well. Diogenes loses again.
Scary. All you need is to replace the name of the Deity, and you've got a perfectly good Ayatollah right here.
You're claiming that 'I presume you know this from personal experience' is a statement that humans don't rape?
Why don't you, Elsie? Bestiality appears to a subject in which you have a keen interest.
And which SHOULD not be so, if I (and everything else on this planet) 'evolved', for it would be ingrained in our jeans (neat pun, huh?) to do so.
Someone on your side needs to read the thread before posting. Any lurker reading from the beginning would wonder just what the heck you guys are talking about, It certainly has nothing to do with anything I've posted.
I said that individuals of different species seldom, if ever, mate. Mark came back with the assertion that they would if the male was bigger and stronger than the female. I cannot fathom what you guys have on your minds.
No, I gave you credit for finally--in the very last line of your post--providing a link. The reader, starting at the other end, still has to plow in and decipher who is talking where before eventually hitting your link. I neither mischaracterized your behavior nor what I find wrong with it.
Many of your fellows don't give even your minimal nod to acknowledging sources. It's a clear pattern of behavior among the creos and is of a piece with the lack of intellectual rigor in the text of their arguments. I was clear about this as well.
This is where I get to chewing the furniture at the creos about Holy Warrior Syndrome. They will not will not will not call a spade a spade unless it is tactically convenient. This would be intellectual dishonesty if there were anything intellectual about it.
I heard that one about West Virginia, where "bisexual" means "sheeps and goats."
It's a mistake to generalize from your own experience to everybody's. Some cultures have many gods. Some have none. Personally, I see no reason to hypothesize an old nobodaddy aloft. Your perceived 'need' is not mine, and it's not felt by millions of others.
You may end up needing to move to France in order to preserve your intellectual honesty. Just remeber before you start packing, the benefits you have under the righteous judgements that founded this nation can not be found elsewhere.
Oil and water. You may need to move further North and East while you are making up your mind. We will let you do that. Just remember, when Hillary wins in 2008, the civil war that ensues will be between those that follow the God of our founding and those that don't.
I bet there will be some prime real estate available to the "Holy Warriors" in Palm Beach Florida. :-)
He is less clever than Bill, less immersed in tactics. He is visibly less glib. For all that, I would say he is more intelligent. Forrest Gump's Mom might have said that intelligent is as intelligent does.
For the short-sighted, tactics are all you need. Clinton was a "taking it one day at a time" specialist. If you ask such people about "strategy," they think you mean tactics. "I have a strategy to get us through this meeting with what we want."
Bush as a president has some idea of where he's going, hires good people, and doesn't get personally lost in the chess game of day-to-day wrangling.
I make a distinction between intelligence and cleverness. I use no distinction between intelligence and wisdom.
In a free country, I think you can put up with our stupidity. You have shown willingness despite some 220 years of our stupidity. Bill and Hill agree with you by the way, and have been implementing the changes you desire.
I still haven't seen the one Mark was addressing the "rape, human race" question to respond.
I am tapped out on this dance.
Do they teach that in Harvard MBA school? I've known a couple of Harvard MBAs and they seem to get ten times as much done as everyone else, with seemingly less effort.
You would see the responses if you took the trouble to read. Do you believe creatures rape creatures of different species? That IS what the discussion has been about. AI said no and Mark said yes, if the male is bigger and stronger. Go back and read from the beginning.
Wow. Jihadists against the Hildebeest. I think the only ethical thing for those of us who want neither will be to sell guns to both sides.
:-)
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