Science Memes

10885 readers

5273 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
Keep it rooted (on topic).
No spam.
Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

[email protected]

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

552

Perfection (mander.xyz)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

27 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Is there any consensus as to the internal organs/stuff which maybe doesn't fossilize well? Like, did they just evolve a bitchin' chassis but they're constantly tinkering with the internal bits?

[–] [email protected] 44 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

In truth, the modern horsehoe crab is different than its ancestors, just not as much as usually occurs in several hundred million years. So Frank was really more like, "Eh, maybe a little, but not much."

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago

Fossilisation has a bit more to do with deposition conditions than the creature itself. It's why we know next to nothing about jungle dinosaurs and ones around mountains. Most of our knowledge comes from marine and wetland dinos.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

They would most likely look the same but there are still evolutionary changes deeper in the DNA that aren't visible like metabolic and digestive functions. A modern horseshoe crab would not be able to reproduce with one from a 100 million years ago despite looking virtually identical.