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What Does Evolution Have in Store?

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Greetings. Fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds (avian dinosaurs.) Complex forms of animal life.  About 530 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion, fishlike animals with a notochord and eyes at the front of the body, such as Haikouichthys, begin to appear in the fossil record. By the late Cambrian, other jawless forms such as conodonts appear. During the Silurian, jawed and armoured fish appear on the scene, with giant placoderms such as Dunkleosteus, the cartilaginous Chondrichthyes, and the bony Osteichthyes. By the Devonian, fish diversity had greatly increased, including the placoderms, lobe-finned fishes, and early sharks, earning the Devonian the epithet "the age of fishes." The first major groups of amphibians developed in the Devonian period, approximately 370 million years ago, from lobe-finned fish which were similar in physical characteristics to the extant coelacanth and lungfish. These ancient lobe-finned fish had evolved multi-jointed leg-like...
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Ancient, Oriental, Reptilian.

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Greetings. The Cretaceous/Paleogene extinction event was catastrophic, with innumerable forms and species disappearing from the fossil record. A few tough creatures managed to survive the environmental destruction, with some lineages surviving to the present day. The Chinese water dragon is one such ancient animal. Physignathus cocincinus. A native of southern China and mainland southeast Asia, this large reptile is a representative of a lineage that extends back 120 million years. First described by George Cuvier in 1829, this omnivorous animal has remained unchanged since it diverged from its nearest reptilian relatives back in the early days of the Cretaceous Period. A member of the subfamily Amphibolurinae, the dragon's nearest relatives are native to New Guinea and Australia, with the ancient subfamily found nowhere else on the planet.  Measuring about a meter in length, Chinese water dragons are sexually dimorphic, and dinural by nature, staying active during daytime hours. T...
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The Unforgettable Shoebill.

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Greetings. Balaeniceps rex, also known as the Shoebill, is a large long-legged wading bird. It derives its name from its distinctive, enormous shoe-shaped bill. It has a somewhat stork-like physical appearance and has previously been classified with the storks in the order Ciconiiformes based on this morphology. However, new genetic evidence places it with pelicans and herons in the Pelecaniformes. The species lives in tropical East Africa in large swampy environments from South Sudan to Zambia. The shoebill is a tall bird, with a typical height range of between 110 to 140 centimeters, some specimens reaching as much as 152 centimeters in height. Length from tail to beak can range from 100 to 140 centimeters, with wingspans ranging from 230 to 260 centimeters. Adults weigh from 4 to 7 kilograms. A male shoebill will weigh on average around 5.6 kilograms, as opposed to the typical female weight of 4.9 kilograms. The signature feature of the species is its huge, bulbous bill, which is st...
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