American Paddlefish - Tumblr Posts
sturddlefish weren't supposed to exist. they were supposed to be infertile eggs but instead they hatched?? the last common ancestor between surgeon and paddlefish was 180 million years ago- that's like trying to cross a modern human with a platypus (common ancestor ~170 million years ago). it shouldn't have worked
and because the sturddlefish weren't really genetically all there (many of the eggs didn't make it very far into the development) the ones that hatched looked very different from one another
source: wikimedia
specifically, it was a cross between the Russian Sturgeon and the American Paddlefish. if you're thinking "they're both fish though" I need you to remember that "fish" is a SHAPE. just like "tree" and "crab" and "ferret" are shapes. except things have been living in the water much, much longer than they've been living on land, so "fish" have had even longer to evolve away from each other. the last time their common ancestor existed, humans and platypi hadn't even branched off from each other
why is everyone losing their shit at the sturddlefish? are we empathizing with another organism that struggles to exist? are we attributing their success to the spiteful union of species from two cold war enemies?
do we love the different phenotypes given their weird as shit genotypes? are we considering trying to breed a human-platypus hybrid?
sturddlefish weren't supposed to exist. they were supposed to be infertile eggs but instead they hatched?? the last common ancestor between surgeon and paddlefish was 180 million years ago- that's like trying to cross a modern human with a platypus (common ancestor ~170 million years ago). it shouldn't have worked
and because the sturddlefish weren't really genetically all there (many of the eggs didn't make it very far into the development) the ones that hatched looked very different from one another
source: wikimedia
specifically, it was a cross between the Russian Sturgeon and the American Paddlefish. if you're thinking "they're both fish though" I need you to remember that "fish" is a SHAPE. just like "tree" and "crab" and "ferret" are shapes. except things have been living in the water much, much longer than they've been living on land, so "fish" have had even longer to evolve away from each other. the last time their common ancestor existed, humans and platypi hadn't even branched off from each other