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Esteban the monitor   Crocdoc   Sdslancs   Esteban the monitor  
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 #1722423


Esteban the monitor
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 Sweet bio class

I’m taking a Animal Biology class at the university of north carolina wilmington. I have this cool instructor from Denmark who taught at Harvard and other impressive venues. The class basically followed the evolution of animals from sponges to humans... Finally we got to squamates ... i couldn’t believe that we talked about monitors! He said the closest living relative to the sea lizards (ones like what people suspect the loch ness monster to be) is the monitor.. We had a paper assignment reviewing a scientific paper that claimed snakes were not the origin for venom systems, contrary to common belief... This is based on the evidence that anguimorphs iguanians and advanced snakes share certain venoms, disproving the convergent evolution hypothesized about snakes and lizards both having venom systems. I liked the article and assignment...

Well if you are interested in the article, here is the link ARTICLE

i’m not a nerd.
-Matt
05/01/08  05:28pm

 #1722931


Crocdoc
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   Message To: Esteban the monitor   In reference to Message Id: 1722423


 Sweet bio class

The sea lizards that were closely related to the monitors weren’t related to the ’loch ness’ style aquatic reptiles that were around at the time of the dinosaurs.

The monitor relatives were mosasaurs, giant relatives of monitors and snakes. Not to be confused with mesosaurs, which were a different marine reptile altogether.

The loch ness style marine reptiles were plesiosaurs. Many plesiosaurs (the elasmosaurs) had long necks and looked like aquatic versions of the dinosaurs, but weren’t dinosaurs at all.



05/02/08  03:03am

 #1723230


Sdslancs
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   Message To: Crocdoc   In reference to Message Id: 1722931


 Sweet bio class

Quote:

i’m not a nerd.
-Matt

lol, no but it appears crocdoc is (jk, honest )
05/02/08  02:25pm

 #1723245


Esteban the monitor
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   Message To: Sdslancs   In reference to Message Id: 1723230


 Sweet bio class

i never said i was getting an a...



05/02/08  02:53pm


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