• Tudsamfa@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 days ago

    Those 2 in the background aren’t even dinosaurs and have the same locks.

    Convergent evolution is a weird thing, just imagine how strong the evolutionary pressure that caused this had to be.

  • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
    89·
    3 days ago

    BAD Beetlemoses, bad!
    First time I ever downvoted a BM strip, holy heck.

    But yeah… dinos indeed invented evolved feathers, and there’s indeed debate upon how much of that was down to temperature regulation et al, but yeah… eventually a certain branch of dinos evidently found that they could be useful in flight, from what we currently understand.

    Or yeah… it was just about battling 70’s hairdos!
    (daggit, I forgot to mention that part)

      • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        Hair goes back millions of years earlier, but I would NEVER think of critiquing your magnificent coiffure, Don Juan. 🙂

        • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
          2·
          2 days ago

          It’s a silly thing, but if hair predates the mammalian lineage I would like to see a source. My education is as much"of its time" as the people my current age was while I was in college, so I could very well be ignorant, but true hair (not invertebrate fuzz) was a mammalian trait when I was in school.

          Also “millions of years earlier” isn’t much in the tree of life, is your claim that other extinct branches of the “tree of life” before mammalian divergence shared similar structures to mammalian hair? If that’s what you’re stating I’ll concede it may have predated mammalian divergence, but in no significant amount.

          • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
            1·
            21 hours ago

            Late reply, but “hair” and “fur” share huge overlap that I doubt anyone needs to explain.

            AFAIK hair / fur as we know it dates back to mammals, which is to go back over ~65Myrs ago.

            …is your claim that other extinct branches of the “tree of life” before mammalian divergence shared similar structures to mammalian hair?

            Interesting question. There are definitely some counterparts, altho whether they commonly have keratin-based hair is not something I know offhand. Or maybe that doesn’t even matter when the structure and purpose is the same?

            Spiny lobsters for one:
            https://www.google.com/search?q=hairy+lobster+species&udm=2

            Hairy caterpillars, check. Which do have “setae,” seen in loads of other insects.

            Some rare species of fish, I think?

            Filoplumes in birds, check.

            Not sure about others. Will that list do?