RandomStickman comments on Insomnia

Insomnia (thelemmy.club)

submitted 4 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[–] RandomStickman@fedia.io 40 points 4 months ago (10 children)

I think it means we don't know what the ancestors of those plants are/what they evolved from. They just kinda showed up in the fossil record.

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[–] Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 28 points 4 months ago (1 child)

Which, tbf, it's a miracle enough of the fossil record exists as is. I'm sure there was a LOT that was lost to the sands of time

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[–] HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

Iirc it's reckoned most species likely aren't known about because most places weren't conducive to fossilisation

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[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 4 months ago (5 children)

ehh, modern biology doesn't construct evolutionary history from fossil records, but from genetic similarities.

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[–] RandomStickman@fedia.io 11 points 4 months ago (4 children)

It's impossible to compare genetics from fossils and we can't study ancient long dead species besides fossil records for the most part.

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[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de -3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

yeah that's not what i meant. phylogenetic trees are constructed by considering the genetics of recent (living) species, not from fossils.

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[–] RandomStickman@fedia.io 13 points 4 months ago (2 children)

And this post is about ancestors of ferns which are unknown so I'm not sure what are you suggesting

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[–] spicehoarder@lemmy.zip 6 points 4 months ago (1 child)

He's Fern's uncle.

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[–] RandomStickman@fedia.io 3 points 4 months ago

Ah, my bad

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[–] F_State@midwest.social 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

Relatively few lifeforms end up fossilizing and then some of those fossils later get eroded. The percentage that make it to the present is low.

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[–] dudinax@programming.dev 4 points 4 months ago

I'm no paleontologist but it seems like our total knowledge of certain eras comes from a few river banks collapsing on whatever lived there. That's not going to be a great representation of all life at that time.

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