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42Evolution

Near Horizons

How did our stable body temperatures evolve?

Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, works on the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, after a safe landing in the ‘Sea of Tranquility’. This is the only photograph taken of him on the moon’s surface (Image: NASA)

Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, works on the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, after a safe landing in the ‘Sea of Tranquility’. This is the only photograph taken of him on the moon’s surface (Image: NASA)

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Our eyesight is adapted to recognise certain shapes and patterns, particularly those similar to the elongate bodies and scaly skin of snakes. Some researchers suggest this stems from an ancient mechanism in our neurology that enabled our ancestors to be particularly effective at recognising snakes. This implies that like other higher primates today, our ancestors needed to be particularly wary of these lithe predators. This visual acuity for patterns also applies to faces. In fact we can see snakes and faces in almost anything… (Image: Wikimedia commons)

Feeling the fear: the ecology of our most basic emotion

University researchers conduct an autopsy on two stranded Gray's beaked whales (Mesplodon grayi) at Port Waikato, New Zealand. Exposure to underwater sonar seems to trigger a change in their normal diving behaviour, perhaps causing these animals to surface too quickly and putting them at risk of decompression sickness (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Coming up for air

Within a few hours of the naval sonar drill, reports arrived of stranded beaked whales appearing over many kilometres along…

A: The skull of the dolphin-like Temnodontosaurus platyodon (originally Ichthyosaurus), drawn by Everard Home and published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1814. The first fossil ichthyosaurs were dubbed ‘Sea Dragons’ by the popular press. This fossil was found by two children, Joseph and Mary Anning, in the Blue Lias cliffs of Lyme Regis, Dorset. In May 1819, the full 9 metre long skeleton arrived at the British Museum where the keeper of natural history, Charles Konig, initially gave it the name ‘Ichthyosaurus’, meaning ‘fish-lizard’ (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

The reptile that almost became a fish

During the 200 million years that dinosaurs roamed the land, the oceans were ruled by formerly land-dwelling reptiles. Of these, ichthyosaurs adopted dolphin-like forms, plesiosaurs became sea lion-like, and mosasaurs occupied crocodile-like ‘ambush’ predator roles.

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