Jules Poirier lectures in British Columbia

[WickedDyno]

In article <8q44v4$g3b$1 at news.duke.edu>, 
mturner at snipthis.acpub.duke.edu (mel turner) wrote:

> In article 
> <amg39.REMOVETHIS-AAA43C.23363617092000 at newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>, 
> amg39.REMOVETHIS at cornell.edu.invalid wrote...
> >In article <39c58d4f_1 at news1.prserv.net>, scott at home.com wrote:
> >> In <amg39.REMOVETHIS-62773D.21591816092000 at newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>, 
> [snip]
> 
> >> >> 14.Describe one insect that was transitional between a non-flying
> >> >> insect and a flying insect.
> >> >
> >> >A gliding insect.
> >> >
> >> Amazing!
> >> 
> >> So not only is flying a convergent feature,
> >> but so is the actual transition from gliding
> >> to flying.
> 
> How do you get "convergence" from that? As far as we know, flight in 
> insects arose just once, in the early ancestors of the huge group 
> Pterygota. He's just saying that the origin of insect flight would 
> have involved a gliding intermediate stage [much as it would in the 
> three separate origins of vertebrate flight]. 

Perhaps insect flight and vertebrate flight are convergent, he means?

> >Yup.  It's just useful to not die when falling off something high, I 
> >guess.
> 
> Although insects are most often small enough that that's not 
> a danger.

Spoil my nice argument, will you?  :)

> >> >> From what creatures did butterflies evolve?
> >> >
> >> >I don't know.
> >> >
> >> Some butterfly-like ancestor.
> >
> >Someone else indicated that it was probably a moth of some sort.
> 
> Me, probably: 
> Message-ID: <8q1c7r$am7$1 at news.duke.edu>
> http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=670714488
> 
> The point was that "moth" is just a word for "any Lepidoptera that 
> isn't a butterfly [Papilionodea]". Some groups of "moths" are 
> evidently closer relatives of butterflies than they are of the 
> other groups of moths.

Yup.  I was using the term moth in the common sense, not a phylogenetic 
sense.

-- 
|          Andrew Glasgow <amg39(at)cornell.edu>         |
| SCSI is *NOT* magic.  There are *fundamental technical |
| reasons* why it is necessary to sacrifice a young goat |
| to your SCSI chain now and then. -- John Woods         |