I have a really bad headache. Have had it for a while now.
I just took some Advil, but it will take anywhere from 15 minutes to never to kick in. Rather than wait until the pain has subsided, I’m just going to run with this and see how it affects my bioblogging. Think of it as a psychological experiment: will my posting abilities suffer if I’m distracted by crippling head pain? I will note the effects in italics throughout the post.
Subject seems to think that having a headache is some sort of excuse for inventing nonsensical words like “bioblogging.” Subject also finds this word amusing and useful despite its obvious idiocy.
Convergent evolution is this… thing… where two species that take completely different evolutionary paths wind up in a similar evolutionary destination. That. Made. Almost no sense.
Subject has difficulty providing a definition for an evolutionary concept that should be relatively straight forward and is quickly reduced to a state of intense self-loathing.
Let’s try that again. Convergent evolution is when two species (or groups) evolve similar structures or abilities completely independently. Consider a bat, a bird, and a butterfly: they all have wings and can fly, but they evolved completely differently.
They have a few things in common, but it’s an evolutionary coincidence. It doesn’t mean that they’re closely related.
Shared Characteristics
Subject finally arrived at a concise definition and explanation of the topic, but now is more worried about the schizophrenic nature of the post in general, since she is critiquing every paragraph from a third-person perspective.
Do you need another example of convergent evolution? Of course you do! The other examples I happen to be quite fond of are the North American mammals and Australian marsupials.
They share a distant common ancestor, but have been evolving separately for millions of years. But despite this, we end up with some corresponding species that look surprisingly similar.
For example, the Tasmanian Tiger (also known as the thylacine or Tasmanian wolf) looks and acts a lot like the North American wolf-y species. And remember, it’s no more related to a timber wolf of coyote than a koala is. They evolved completely independently.
Subject reports being “in the zone” despite debilitating pain and asks not to be interrupted quite so often.
Convergent evolution like this happens when animals evolve in similar environments and assume the same niche, or ecological role. In this case, these two areas both were in need, so to speak, of a top predator–although, I’m sure a mouse would beg to differ.
It had to be a bit bigger than other animals, be pretty fast, have big teeth, and so on. And because of all this, through millions of years and thousands of miles of difference, we find something very similar. Blamo! Converge! Evolution! Excitement!
Subject is fairly certain the Advil is starting to kick in and no longer needs this italicized service.
