Mar 28 2012

Botanical Wednesday+Metazoan: Cross-kingdom profligacy

Categories:

Organisms

by PZ Myers

(Also on Sb)

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31 comments

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1

yubal

28 March 2012 at 10:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Is that a carnivorous plant specialized on trapping mice or a plant requiring mammalian pollination or just some mice crawling on a flower?
2

Glen Davidson

28 March 2012 at 10:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

They’re all just eukaryotes.

Until you can evolve archaeans from a buffalo, you Darwinists have nothing.

Anyway, why are there still plants (yes I know we didn’t evolve from plants) if there are now animals?

I do love the displays made for beguiling metazoans into conduits for plant sex.

Glen Davidson
3

crocswsocks

28 March 2012 at 10:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Shouldn’t the word be “interregnal”?
4

Caine, Fleur du Mal

28 March 2012 at 10:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Honey Possums? Oh, the cute!
5

JohnnieCanuck

28 March 2012 at 10:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Given that they are Australian Honey Possums, I’m going to say these are marsupials, not mice or mammals.
6

yubal

28 March 2012 at 10:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@ JohnnieCanuck

Marsupials ARE mammals.
7

A. R

28 March 2012 at 10:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Nice one PZ, sneaking it in before the buzzer. :)
8

Caine, Fleur du Mal

28 March 2012 at 10:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Nice one PZ, sneaking it in before the buzzer.

Oh, so we’re all in one time zone, are we?
9

JohnnieCanuck

28 March 2012 at 11:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Oops. True that.

Found this over on Wikipedia and had to share.

Females are promiscuous, mating with a large number of males. Competition has led to the males having the largest testes relative to their body weight for any known mammal, being 4.2 per cent. Their sperm is also the largest in the mammal world, measuring 0.36mm.
10

chigau (一番)

28 March 2012 at 11:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Funny looking bees.
11

eidolon

28 March 2012 at 11:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

4.2% of their body weight? That means a 180 lb man would have, if in the same proportion, great difficulty walking.
12

llewelly

28 March 2012 at 11:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Such Filth and Depravity is in stunning violation of God’s Commandments!
13

Aratina Cage

28 March 2012 at 11:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

You’re just teasing rickw with all this “bestiality”, aren’t you?
14

lexie

29 March 2012 at 2:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Yah :) An Aussie botanical Wednesday item!
15

theophontes 777

29 March 2012 at 2:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@ Glen Davidson

Until you can evolve archaeans from a buffalo …

Cool!

… oh wait! … not Achaeans?

*yawn*
16

Giliell, not to be confused with The Borg

29 March 2012 at 3:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

*Squeeeeeee*
Thanx, PZ, with all that depressing stuff around this is really apreciated
17

pentatomid

29 March 2012 at 4:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@ yubal,

No carnivorous plant. Just some honey possums on a flower.
18

Rumtopf

29 March 2012 at 5:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8552000/8552157.stm

Reminds me of this :D
19

A. R

29 March 2012 at 7:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Can you take a fucking joke Caine?
20

doktorzoom

29 March 2012 at 10:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Honey possum just doesn’t give a shit.
21

ChasCPeterson

29 March 2012 at 11:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I didn’t get the fucking joke.

Still don’t.
22

busterggi

29 March 2012 at 12:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

That is practically a toxic level of adorable there.
23

grumpypathdoc

29 March 2012 at 1:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Caine, Fleur du Mal @4

Ditto, the cuteness is overwhelming. Of course you have to like ‘possums.
24

Caine, Fleur du Mal

29 March 2012 at 1:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

grumpypathdoc:

Of course you have to like ‘possums.

Which I do. These are itsy bitsy teeny tiny possums! Pure magic.
25

grumpypathdoc

29 March 2012 at 1:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Rumtopf@18

Doesn’t the pitcher plant kind of look like a toilet anyways?
26

grumpypathdoc

29 March 2012 at 1:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Forgot to say, my wife would kill me if I left the lid up.
27

grumpypathdoc

29 March 2012 at 1:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Caine, Fleur du Mal

I like the noses. Fried of mine in high school had a baby opossum and brought on the school bus to show off in biology class. Some kids freaked out, as did the bus driver. The rest of us all wanted to hold the little critter.

They do have sharp teeth though.

And no, I didn’t need a rabies vaccination as it was immunized pet.

Still cute though.
28

grumpypathdoc

29 March 2012 at 1:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Sorry friend of mine not fried.
29

Caine, Fleur du Mal

29 March 2012 at 1:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

grumpypathdoc:

They do have sharp teeth though.

Yes they do. So do rats, of which I has three. :D Honey possums don’t have the standard possum teeth though. They have interesting dentition. See here.
30

Markita Lynda—it's Spring after the Winter that wasn't

29 March 2012 at 2:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Maybe in a million years they’ll grow trunks and be the world’s smallest marsupial elephants!
31

pj

29 March 2012 at 2:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@Markita Lynda

Have you heard of elephant shrews? Not marsupials though but exactly the kind of critters you are speculating on.