Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Semi Paleo Question

My blog has been paleo light lately. I have some posts that I want to get out,, but simply haven't had the time. Thank GPFS, SLES 10, my obnoxious workstation, and Cray for that (though not all together and not at the same time). However, a thought did cross my mind multiple times and been reminded back again after I watched the Bone Diggers on Nova last night. It's pretty simple, but something I think would be fun to bandy about a bit.

Fast forward about 30 million years. WAIT! Yes, this is a paleo post. Or rather, this is question for the paleo types that read at least occasionally this blog. You see, you've working to uncover a lot of fossils from what would have been our time. Perhaps you are human back from the stars. Perhaps you are some other form of intelligence. It really doesn't matter that much. Just assume, for a moment, that you are working under the the same assumptions that you are now - humor me - wrt to classifying fossils. That said...

One area that you are working you're finding a lot of skeletons. It's not the large biped found elsewhere (if you're an alien or a forgetful post or transhuman), but rather there are a lot of carnivorous quadrupeds. They seem related, but they come in all shapes and sizes. From very small to quite large. Would you ever guess that in reality despite that the fact that they are so polymorphic that it was a single species?

If you haven't guessed it by now, I'd be shocked, but I am talking about dogs. The thought occurred to be that even while using cladistics, you would realize that they were relatives, but I've got a hunch that they would be classified as a myriad of species. At least from the paleontologist POV.

Am I wrong?

So, in turn, asking the bio types, in reality are they? After all, isn't a Great Dane going to be mildly reproductively isolated from, oh, a Chihuahua?

Just asking.

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