Perspective: Biological

Just sitting here thinking. About evolution.

I know of a fish, somewhat, that breathes air.
I know of a Crab that is not a crab at all, but an Arachnid.
I know of a dinosaur era fish that was thought dead, only to be found again.

And I know we are all related to them.
And I know that the ability to understand this genetically is a glorious addendum to the profits of the natural sciences.

Above: Coelacanth; thought dead, thought extinct, found in Madagascar. And people have trouble accepting that chimps are related to humans.

Above: Horseshoe Crab; not really a crab. Trilobite, anyone? Uncanny phynological resemblance, and distinct genetic connection to ancestral early-ear biota.

Above: Ahh...take a deep breath. The drown prone lung fish. A fish. A drowning fish. A fish that can drown. Now of course reptiles and mammals (whales, dolphins included) can drown, but fish? Well, yup.

Now why do I post this and ramble as I am post internet-searching images of these living fossils? Well, a bite of perspective, that is all. These species (well, these representatives of their respective other sibling species) are living fossils. We have 80, 90, 100 million year old fossils that look anatomically the same as these three (of four living species - Lingula the brachiopod like species that is extant today still, in stark resemblance of million year old species). These living forms have anatomically changed very little since tens of millions of years ago.

And we have species that reach adulthood and revert to adolescence.

And we have species that live on dry land (cant swim, in fact) but who lay eggs in water.

And we have species that ...

Point: Nature is pretty neat. There is no rhyme to follow, no stochastic tempo to pattern out, and simply no way of knowing what is to be uncovered next. Today, to make the point, a brand new mineral was discovered. Pretty darn neat. The lungfish is deemed humanities last ancestral link to 'fish' species before our evolutionary trajectory took us out of the water, to the tree's and into the suburbs. The Coelacanth a step before that. They are special, they are alive STILL.

Biology, my mind says, is fantastic. It tells a great story. It tells the story.