When Armor Met Lips

[Affric]

Great photo selection with the shifty looking seal (gotta love the whites of caniform eyes) and a nice little summary of the article.

One thing about zoology and animal morphology is that we all know how important feeding is for animals but only real nerds love the digestive tract. Transport, skin, and reproduction are far more glamorous; but the mammalian sense of smell and mouth parts gave us such an advantage in the tertiary period.

It’s interesting that this sort of feeding never arose in the sea. I wonder what the ancestors of the pinnipeds who first ventured back into water ate…

[082349872349872]

If they're related to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustelidae , probably just about any catchable animals?

[CoolGuySteve]

If you find this evolutionary history interesting then I can't recommend PBS Eons enough. It's a great youtube series on the subject: well researched, a dense but breezy pace, and the paleo art + fossil images help convey information without being overly dry.

Here's the one about this subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vQ55ToQeWI

[mannykannot]

"Pinnipeds evolved about thirty million years ago. They showed up first in the colder parts of the northern hemisphere, then in the Antarctic, then in temperate zones."

That's an interesting sequence, given that the continents then were about where they are now.

[thriftwy]

It takes one volcanic winter for them to cross the oceans and emerge on the other side, without being fit for the warm waters.

[aendruk]

That’s the sequence of notable populations; individuals did who knows what.

[nateb2022]

It is possible that they fed on extremophiles which thrived in really cold regions and later evolved to feed on other food sources.

[ricardobeat]

Maybe they evolved in both places independently, or maybe it took a couple million years for a pod of seals to make the journey from north to south, and then start dominating the local ecosystem.

[angiosperm]

Do not neglect the Paper Nautilus, a kind of Mediterranean octopus.

https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/the-seamstress-and-th...

https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/12/26/jeanne-villepreux-...

Jeanne Villepreux-Power invented marine biology, single-handed in the early 19th century.

She observed them repairing a hole in their shell by gluing on a found patch.

[teruakohatu]

That is interesting. I looked it up on wikipedia and the Argonaut / Paper Nautilus "shell" is a thin walled eggcase and that males do not have. It does not provide protection.

[jimkleiber]

I thoroughly enjoyed the author's writing style. Anyone know where I can find more by him, Doug Muir?

[HankB99]

Google knows: https://crookedtimber.org/2024/01/03/welcome-to-doug-muir/

[pizzalife]

Personally I can't stand it, yeah?

[readyplayernull]

> If you’re inclined to be pedantic about the nautilus’ limbs and say that /actually/ they are “arms” and not “tentacles” because tentacles have suckers on them, then (a) congratulations on remembering that long-ago biology class, and (b) see Footnote 1, above.

Something tells me an arm is a mechanical limb composed of connected poles that turn at their joints. And a hose-like limb without suckers should have its own name. A foot is an "arm", a penis is something else.

[pineaux]

Penis is definitely something else because it contains (almost) no muscles, while your other examples do (contain muscles).

[zem]

you don't need a new name, "tentacle" is fine and does not imply suckers. see hydra e.g.

[Karellen]

Also, tails

[nehal3m]

Hey, speak for yourself!

[B1FF_PSUVM]

Also: https://crookedtimber.org/2024/02/19/death-lonely-death/#com...

about Voyager 1, recently in the news

[a3w]

So the ideal tank buster is a carnivorous unicorn: penetrate that armor, then schlorp out the crew! Genetics will go too far, if we ever get these.

[h2odragon]

That's why the graceful, horse shaped unicorns of classical times died out; and what we have now is the up-armored, heavyweight rhinoceros version.

Evolution is amazing innit.

[mec31]

Reminds me of one of my favorite Far Side cartoons https://www.reddit.com/r/TheFarSide/s/g5y9E0ZlmI

[JKCalhoun]

I wanted to go fossil hunting (and for ammonites in particular) after watching these guys just haul them out:

https://youtu.be/9XWhdPL58is

[vitiral]

I really enjoyed this article, but I was really disappointed. For some reason I thought it was going to evolve into a Lovecraftian epic of how the grand and horrifying civilization of the ancient cephalopods and their relatives was thwarted by another species, one who paved the way for our own ignorant and doomed civilization to thrive.

I kept this feeling until the very end [spoiler] even when it was revealed to be seals I held out hope they could be a Lovecraftian player in a grand epic saga.

[csours]

who do you think is protecting us from the lovecraftian horrors?

[yencabulator]

You might enjoy knowing that the name of one of the oldest known gods in Finnish history, one with very Cthulhu-style looks, came to mean walrus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iku-Turso_(creature)

[pfdietz]

"So, you’re saying the nautiloids did okay until the pinnipeds sealed their fate?"

[Terr_]

I'm nautiloid to say more about their spiral into the depths.

[jrflowers]

It is a shame that this is not about when Armour Meats perfected their hot dog formulation

[alexey-salmin]

"Ah! Love! The only thing my armor can't withstand!"

[HankB99]

> geology nerd

Shouldn't that be "paleontology nerd?"

[angiosperm]

Paleontology used to be a subspecialty of geology, for a long time after they proved fossils had once been animals. Which the geologists had to do.

[skavi]

See footnote 1