Re: Body Hair Loss in Aquatic Mammals

Phil Nicholls (pnich@globalone.net)
Fri, 27 Oct 1995 18:21:19 GMT

clarke@longwood.cs.ucf.edu (Tom Clarke) graced us with the following
words:

>In article <469c5p$aj2@news.global1.net> pnich@globalone.net (Phil Nicholls) writes:
>>hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey) graced us with the following
>>words:

>>>Perhaps an animal with the intelligence of a baboon
>>>would have noticed that they did not overheat when
>>>standing bipedally.

>>Perhaps far off in space, cosmic bunnies control our fate.
>>Perhaps monkeys will fly out my butt.

>I warned you:

>In article <46df78$e01@news.cc.ucf.edu> clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes:

>>... you must phrase this properly if you
>> want your opponents to listen.
>......
>> Yes why did only the Australopithecus line become bipedal
>> if all it takes is an ape and savannah or a mosaic savannah?

>>Perhaps baboons baboons already occupy a successful ecological
>>niche on the savannah. Perhaps baboons are biomechanically too
>>specialized to become full time bipeds.

>That is an answer, but one that I do not find convincing.

Somehow I am not surprised.

>Is the baboon niche so narrow that another quadrapedal primate
>need not apply?

I didn't say anything about the baboon niche being narrow. I said
that they were obviously successful. The fossil record indicates
that they were even more diverse in the early Pliocene just prior to
the appearance of hominids. In order to occupy the savannah, early
hominids, had to find a slightly different niche.

>Are the miocene apes so biomechanically specialized that they
>cannot become full time quadrapeds?

Some where. Most likely the common ancestor was very generalized or
may have been a specialized suspensory feeder obligated to bipedalism
when on the ground in much the same way as gibbons or spider monkeys
are today.

>>"To ask a question you must first know most of the answer"
>> -Robert Sheckley

Phil Nicholls pnich@globalone.net
"To ask a question you must first know most of the answer"
-Robert Sheckley