Primates do it quite a bit actually Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Other mammals I'm aware of that do it are essentially semi-aquatic, like otters, beavers, nutria, muskrat, capybara, hippo etc.
sci had a aat discussion close to a decade ago. atavism was referenced Probably the most well known case of atavism is found in the whales. According to the standard phylogenetic tree, whales are known to be the descendants of terrestrial mammals that had hindlimbs. Thus, we expect the possibility that rare mutant whales might occasionally develop atavistic hindlimbs. In fact, there are many cases where whales have been found with rudimentary atavistic hindlimbs in the wild (for reviews see Berzin 1972, pp. 65-67 and Hall 1984, pp. 90-93). Hindlimbs have been found in baleen whales (Sleptsov 1939), humpback whales (Andrews 1921) and in many specimens of sperm whales (Abel 1908; Berzin 1972, p. 66; Nemoto 1963; Ogawa and Kamiya 1957; Zembskii and Berzin 1961). Most of these examples are of whales with femurs, tibia, and fibulae; however, some even include feet with complete digits. " http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! our aerial ancestry is frakking obvious babies flapping their arms? a return to the skies? i think so remember icarus? ja the aerial ape
Only the domesticated ones and only because their owners take them to the water and play with them in it. Left to their own devices few dogs would seek the water and none would hunt in it. they are not great swimmers, but then they do have great endurance, so they can "dog paddle" for a long time, but you can tell they are not really comfortable in the water. Wild dogs and wolves don't hang out in the water. Arthur
Get out of the water quick animals !!! you will go bald !!! My mommy told me that when I was young to keep me from taking to many baths . She was a hippie gal from the commune were we only took a bath once a month down at the river all natural. Goats Milk was our main diet. Non Pasteurized to boot . We ate a lot of wheat we ground our selves . The same way you eat oat meal , Yep cooked in a black kettle on an open fire . It was a real treat when we got oats . They tasted way better to Me
Virtually all mammals can swim. Many species don't have enough fat to be buoyant, so swimming is hard work and they wouldn't be able to travel a long distance. But most of them could swim to the shore of a small river if they fell off a boat. Surely you saw the movie "Milo and Otis," with the cat that was doing his own aquatic stunts and having a ball. In any case, the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis was thoroughly refuted by the discovery of Ardipithecus a few years ago. She was the "missing link" we've been looking for, dated 4-5MYA and nicely filling the gap between the chimpanzee-bonobo lineage and our more recent near-human ancestors. What startled everyone was that she also refuted the savannah hypothesis. Ardi lived in the forest, developing bipedal walking and long-distance carrying without venturing out onto the savannah. Her anatomy was still suitable for climbing trees for safety, but not nearly as nimbly as a chimpanzee or any other non-human ape. She was at home on the ground or in the trees--not in the water. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! So, not only did we not develop our intelligence by living in a three-dimensional environment (an explanation I found quite convincing in those days), but we also did not develop our locomotion or our social patterns out on the savannah. We lived in the trees much more recently than we thought. So next time you marvel at the agility of an Olympic gymnast, remember who his ancestors were.
Next time you marvel at an olympic swimmer rememer the preceeding is not cast in stone. We clearly had an aquatic past. What, when and how long remains to determined. Arthur
When I was young, my parents had to stop me from showering , I was doing it 4-5 times daily for quite a while.
That is a lot of showering . Most my life I showered once a day . Now I will skip a day . Not always . I seem to be just as healthy as I was . When we go hunting or fishing we will go 3 or 4 days with out bathing . Things get a little ripe by then . Now as a young child in the summer we lived in the pool at the school down the street. All pruned up good all summer . Up until I was forced into working in the building trade at eight , then pool time dwindled big time
Actually no matter how long you spend in the water the only thing that "prunes up" are your palms and finger tips and the soles of your feet. Indeed, the ridges of your finger tips adjust, into defined ridges, fairly rapidly so you can grip things in the water securely. A fine adaption to a semi-aquatic environment. Arthur
What about lips? I seem to see a "pruning" effect along with "blueing". That is a very interesting observation / interpretation. Is it yours, or do others share this opinion? Any links?
And yet the video does not claim we descended directly from apes. So we are discussing it like it did, it is in the title as well. I dont understand. The baby picture is amazing...really makes you wonder.
I love swimming, so I'm on board with the semi-aquatic theory...and yes, if we hunted and gathered along tidal zones any primitive remains would be gone. Suspecting, if true, they just used rocks and hands to catch small creatures anyway and smash them open...not even fish, for the most part. Stuff like crabs, mussels, barnacles, snails, little bivalves. Things you can pick out of the surf with your hands...or maybe, at best, chased into the shallows to kill and eat. Nor would the primitive humans gone out too far. There's a lot of sharks-big ones-off the African coast.
All opinions about our aquatic past are mine alone. Unlike the typical Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, which claims that our erect posture was linked to our aquatic environment, I suspect that our aquatic period came much later and than bi-pedalism. Indeed, our erect posture is one of the things that allowed us to live in a semi-aquatic state, not the other way round. I do think aspects of our current erect posture likely benefited from it, particularly our very light bone structure in comparison to our close primate ancestors. We are a far lighter, and far more buoyant breed than any other primate. Interestingly, our ability to hold our breath is intimately tied to our ability to articulate speech. Which is why they attempt to talk to other primates in sign language, not speech, as it is not an ability they innately possess. Also , most depictions of us in our natural state fail to portray us as we actually look in our natural state. Try it, go natural for a year or so and see what you actually look like. First thing you might notice is that adult males and females are clearly distinguishable from pre-pubescent males and females from the arm-pits up. While our primate relatives are pretty much IDENTICAL from the arm pits up regardless of sexual maturity. For evolutionary reasons you simply can't ignore the unique importance of the development of secondary sexual characteristics in our species. An arboreal or savannah origin does not explain this at all. Then when it comes to hair it turns out we are not hairless by any means, indeed, we are unique in our LONG head hair. Which clearly, lying upon our shoulders would protect us from the sun, but would also, given a few twists, quickly dry out when we were ashore. Then there are the conical breasts of women, clearly an advantage to feeding an infant in water and of no benefit at all otherwise. http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o72/ardoucette/Reg Sea Sea/erect_770_thb.jpg Arthur
:wtf: Is that really the only link you could provide for an example? Tacky! Very interesting but “breast as baby pillows” come on. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! “Babies’ clenching fists are simply grabbing mama’s long hair (another aquatic adaptation) for a tow while she’s foraging. During this aquatic phase (7 to 4 Myr ago) breasts were baby pillows and infants didn’t spend the first year of their life in total helplessness, undoubtedly a major contributor today to all human problems.” Uncommon descent: comment Oh, no, not the Aquatic Ape hypothesis! Aquatic Ape: Fact or Fiction? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9361254
If you deny our aquatic heritage let me ask you, do you bathe nearly every day? If so, why do you feel the need to? What other primate (or indeed any land animal) is there that bathes themselves in water nearly every day? We absolutely can't go very long without being in the water. Even humans living in areas where water is hard to come by still manage to bathe. http://tundramedicinedreams.blogspot.com/2006/06/taking-steam.html To claim this universal human need did not arise from our evolutionary heritage makes no sense at all. On the other hand, to claim every adaption that differentiates us from other primates is the result of a semi-aquatic shore dwelling period (there is no compelling evidence that we ever lived in the water 24/7) also makes no sense. There was a long path, 7+ million years, that separate the hominid line from other primates, it's unlikely that much of it was spent as shore dwellers or that we ever lived in the water or we would indeed be much more adapted to an aquatic way of life. But what does seem likely is as the 3rd of Trooper's links points out: there does seem to be evidence that not only did they take to water from time to time but that the water and by this I mean inland lakes and rivers) was a habitat that provided enough extra food to count as an agency for selection. Arthur
Dogs don't typically hang out in the water. They may fish or drink maybe even play a little, but without their owners hanging out in the water dogs wouldn't swim for hours on end like people do.
