Image:header-trans

Proof of Evolution?
The Search for the Fish-Bird

This is being proposed to the evolutionists as a possible intermediate form to find that may help in giving some strong support to the theory of Evolution. Or maybe it will give something else.

The extinction of the dinosaurs according to the meteor theory involves scenes of unbelievable destruction:

What do we do with these impact scenarios? Naturally, we compare them with the evidence from the geological record. Birds, tortoises, and mammals live on land and breathe air: the evidence from the K-T boundary shows that they survived the K-T boundary event. Therefore they and the air they breathed weren't set on broil for several hours. To put it simply, these scenarios did not happen.
History of Life, Richard Cowen, 2000.
https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/events/cowen2b.html


Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes

Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes.

Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes

Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes.

Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes
Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes

Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes.

The survival of birds is the strangest of all the K-T boundary events, if we are to accept the catastrophic scenarios. Smaller dinosaurs overlapped with larger birds in size and in ecological roles as terrestrial bipeds. How did birds survive while dinosaurs did not? Birds seek food in the open, by sight; they are small and warm-blooded, with high metabolic rates and small energy stores. Even a sudden storm or a slightly severe winter can cause high mortality among bird populations. Yet an impact scenario, according to its enthusiasts, includes "a nightmare of environmental disasters, including storms, tsunamis, cold and darkness, greenhouse warming, acid rains and global fires." There must be some explanation for the survival of birds, turtles, and crocodiles through any catastrophe of this scale, or else the catastrophe models are wrong.
https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/events/cowen3b.html


Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles

Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles.

Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles

Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles.

Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles
Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles

Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles.

there was no extinction in the insects, a group that should have been the most sensitive to a global catastrophe predicted by the impact advocates. ... Nor do the birds show much extinction, even though they too should have been vulnerable (Chiappe 1995). ...
some extreme impact scenarios postulate extensive acid rain bathing the earth for a long time after the impact. However, the survival of amphibians shows that this is simply a fantasy (Weil 1984). Amphibians breathe through their porous skins and are sensitive to slight changes in the acidity of their watery habitat. Even now, the slightly more acidic conditions of lakes and ponds due to human-induced acid rain are causing frogs and salamanders to die out rapidly. If the entire earth had been subjected to a huge acid bath, there simply would not be a frog or salamander alive on the earth today. p.38.
After the Dinosaurs, Donald R. Prothero, 2006.


Image:Frogs, Salamanders Image:Frogs, Salamanders

Frogs, Salamanders

Image:Frogs, Salamanders Image:Frogs, Salamanders

Frogs, Salamanders

Image:Frogs, Salamanders Image:Frogs, Salamanders

Frogs, Salamanders

The Chicxulub impactor had an estimated diameter of 11-81 kilometers (6.8-50.3 mi), and delivered an estimated energy of 21-921 billion Hiroshima A-bombs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater

The impact had a kinetic energy of more than 10 billion megatonnes. This is a thousand times the amount of energy contained in all the world's nuclear weapons arsenals. p.254.
The Dinosaurs Rediscovered, MICHAEL J. BENTON, 2019.

Earth itself became toxic. When the asteroid struck, it vaporized layers of limestone, releasing into the atmosphere a trillion tons of carbon dioxide, ten billion tons of methane, and a billion tons of carbon monoxide; all three are powerful greenhouse gases. The impact also vaporized anhydrite rock, which blasted ten trillion tons of sulfur compounds aloft. The sulfur combined with water to form sulfuric acid, which then fell as an acid rain that may have been potent enough to strip the leaves from any surviving plants and to leach the nutrients from the soil.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died

Then acid rain, formed from the nitrous oxide and sulfates clogging the atmosphere, began to hammer down on the surface, killing plants and animals and even dissolving rocks. This rain would have been as corrosive as battery acid and its most devastating effect would have been to destroy the shells of small marine organisms. p.165.
Flying Dinosaurs: How fearsome reptiles became birds, John Pickrell, 2014.

The effects of the sulphuric acid on the climate was so severe that the computer simulations found it would have taken at least 30 years for the global climate to recover.
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/dinosaurs-extinction-simulation

So just how would the birds have gone with all of this happening?

Canary
Canary
Canary
Bird: Canary. Very vulnerable to airborne poisons!

Canaries were used "in coal mines to detect carbon monoxide and other toxic gases before they hurt humans". "Canaries, like other birds, are good early detectors of carbon monoxide because they're vulnerable to airborne poisons."
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/story-real-canary-coal-mine-180961570/

Birds are vulnerable to airborne poisons!!

Since birds are vulnerable to airborne poisons it is very clear that they should have gone completely extinct along with the dinosaurs when the meteor supposedly impacted our planet 66 million years ago. And this has been a very big headache for evolutionists with some admissions actually being printed:

Of the many great dinosaurian lineages, only the birds made it through the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous – but nobody is quite sure why. p.162.
Flying Dinosaurs: How fearsome reptiles became birds, John Pickrell, 2014.

Early members of the palaeognath lineage survived (the group that includes ostriches and emus), as did members of the wildfowl and gamebird lineage, as did members of the lineage that led to seabirds, hawks, perching birds, and so on.
Why these bird groups survived when other dinosaur groups didn't is a good question, and one that hasn't been answered satisfactorily. p.208.
Dinosaurs: How they lived and evolved. Darren Naish & Paul M. Barrett, CSIRO Publishing, 2018.

Since the catastrophic scenarios of the meteor impact have been made public, and evolutionists now realise what this all means to the birds and other susceptible species, they have been running in backpedalling mode, trying to come up with all sorts of excuses as to how these susceptible species survived while the dinosaurs didn't. And it doesn't take much reasoning to see through it all.

The proposal given here is a result of one of their excuses:

Avians may have been* able to survive the extinction as a result of their abilities to dive, swim, or seek shelter in water and marshlands. Many species of avians can build burrows, or nest in tree holes, or termite nests, all of which provided shelter from the environmental effects at the K–Pg boundary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event
* Sorry but I just can't help myself--there's another "may have been"!!

Small mammals are given the same excuse:

K–Pg boundary mammalian species were generally small, comparable in size to rats; this small size would have helped them find shelter in protected environments. It is postulated that some early monotremes, marsupials, and placentals were semiaquatic or burrowing, as there are multiple mammalian lineages with such habits today. Any burrowing or semiaquatic mammal would have had additional protection from K–Pg boundary environmental stresses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event

It is difficult to understand just how much protection would be given by water and marshlands, tree-holes and termite nests, in the face of a destructive force up to an estimated energy of 21-921 billion Hiroshima A-bombs! And that followed by storms, tsunamis, cold and darkness, greenhouse warming, global fires and extensive acid rain bathing the earth for a long long time after the impact.

Being vulnerable to airborne poisons, the birds would have been one of the very first species to go extinct from the meteor impact, even before the non-avian dinosaurs. Still, just for a laugh we could consider the crazy excuse of survival by seeking shelter in water and marshlands as this is mentioned and for the mammals which were supposedly "generally small, comparable in size to rats." And we are told that avians have an ability to dive and swim. Well maybe not all of them were great at this but obviously many were. And those that were good at this would have obviously taken this direction like a duck to water.

But unlike ducks paddling around on top of the water, the acid rain and poisonous gases that were released at the time of the impact, would have forced the surviving birds underwater. [apart from the birds that went underground. But that's another page.] And we are told this state of affairs could have lasted for many years:

The effects of the sulphuric acid on the climate was so severe that the computer simulations found it would have taken at least 30 years for the global climate to recover.
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/dinosaurs-extinction-simulation


Underwater Birds

Clearly they were not just hiding underwater for a few weeks. So our underwater birds would have stayed there for quite a few years! And as they got acclimatized to their new environment they may even have stayed there for decades, centuries, and even millenia! And we should of course expect evolution to kick in and make some adjustments:

Throughout the lives of the individuals, their genomes interact with their environments to cause variations in traits.
Natural selection acts on the phenotype, the characteristics of the organism which actually interact with the environment, ... Over time, this process can result in populations that specialise for particular ecological niches (microevolution) and may eventually result in speciation (the emergence of new species, macroevolution).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

So according to evolution, there is very strong support for some type of speciation for our avian-dinosaurs that supposedly survived the extinction in their new underwater swimming environment. Adaptability for this would bring about some animal that would possibly be a cross between our current day birds and fish. Further, this new species being at the very beginning of bird ancestry [above the K-Pg boundary] could well also be the common ancestor of our current day fish that display some possible bird characteristics.

We could call this early ancestor to these possible species a Fish-Bird.

Fish Bird
Early Paleocene: 66-? Ma
Weight: 700 g
Length: 40 cm

Image:Fish-Bird
Construction of what the Fish-Bird may have looked like

And we can hope that paleontologists can find some evidence of this animal somewhere above the K-Pg boundary. Unfortunately most of the paleontologists currently are probably searching for dinosaur fossils:

Somewhere around the world—from the deserts of Argentina to the frozen wastelands of Alaska—a new species of dinosaur is currently being found, on average, once a week. Let that sink in: a new dinosaur every ... single ... week. That's about fifty new species each year. p.6.
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, Steve Brusatte, 2018.

By this they should be just about digging up dinosaur fossils left, right, and center. But hopefully there should still be a small number of paleontologists digging around above the K-Pg boundary somewhere trying to sort out the puzzle of the Early Paleocene dinosaurs whether they really did exist or not. And maybe just maybe they may stumble across our suggested Fish-Bird in the process.

And if they do find some evidence we could possiby see an amendment in the evolutionary tree as follows:


Image:Evolution tree for the Fish-Bird
Suggested amendment for the Fish-Bird possible common ancestor of some fish with bird-like traits.
To see the Mole-Bird tree see our companion page: The Search for the Mole-Bird.

And it would be quite funny if they did actually find this creature. Well it certainly would support the premise that this is indeed all a hoax.

POSTSCRIPT

Note: though the majority of evolutionists have accepted the meteor extinction theory there are a few dissenting voices who have spoken out against it.

And given the devastation that supposedly occurred according to the meteor extinction computer simulations and that some species were very susceptible, such as the birds, frogs, and salamanders, I wholeheartedly concur with what one of the dissenting evolutionists has written:

"the survival of amphibians shows that this is simply a fantasy"

In fact there are many other species that were there with the dinosaurs that should have also been impacted and gone extinct. Simply put, because we still have these species around it would appear that the meteor extinction theory is a complete fantasy.


Image:Species that should be extinct! Birds Image:Species that should be extinct! Tortoises Image:Species that should be extinct! Mammals
Image:Species that should be extinct! Crocodiles Image:Species that should be extinct! Frogs Image:Species that should be extinct! Salamanders Image:Species that should be extinct! Turtles

Some species that should be extinct!

Image:Species that should be extinct! Birds Image:Species that should be extinct! Tortoises Image:Species that should be extinct! Mammals
Image:Species that should be extinct! Crocodiles Image:Species that should be extinct! Frogs Image:Species that should be extinct! Salamanders Image:Species that should be extinct! Turtles

Some species that should be extinct!

Image:Species that should be extinct! Birds Image:Species that should be extinct! Frogs Image:Species that should be extinct! Salamanders
Image:Species that should be extinct! Crocodiles Image:Species that should be extinct! Tortoises Image:Species that should be extinct! Turtles
Image:Species that should be extinct! Mammals

Some species that should be extinct!

But if the meteor extinction theory is a fantasy then so is the evidence for it. Unfortunately that includes fossils, rock layers, and even the smoking gun itself, the whole 150 km wide, 20 km deep Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico! And because we do currently have snakes, birds, frogs, salamanders, crocodiles, tortoises, turtles, and sharks [and probably quite a few other species that should not have survived], the supposed evidence is definitely a fantasy. But these "evidences" do exist and that is covered in another study.


REFERENCES


Just because I have constructed an evolution tree with dinosaurs etc does not necessarily mean that I believe any of this or that I believe that any of the dinosaurs actually existed.

Fish pic:
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=341503&picture=fish-tropical-vintage
Karen Arnold has released this "Fish Tropical Vintage" image under Public Domain license.
Public Domain
Remix: with robin pic.

Flying fish pic:
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/pictures/380000/velka/fisch-tropisch-vintage-kunst-1609592373YjY.png
Andrea Stöckel has released this "Fish Tropical Vintage Art" image under Public Domain license.
Public Domain

Parrotfish pic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stoplight-parrotfish.jpg
Stoplight parrotfish (Sparisoma viride)
Attribution: Adona9
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Remix: cropped

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rotkehlchen_bird.jpg
European Robin
Attribution: Ting Chen
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Remix: with fish pic.

Sorting out dimensions:
"K–Pg boundary mammalian species were generally small, comparable in size to rats;"
so using rat dimensions to approximate length and weight of our fish-bird.

One of the largest muroids, it is a brown or grey rodent with a head and body length of up to 28 cm (11 in) long, and a tail slightly shorter than that. It weighs between 140 and 500 g (5 and 17 3⁄4 oz).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_rat

Common Rats have a height of 2.4”-3.5” (6-9 cm), body length between 6”-10” (15-25 cm), and an overall weight in the range of .6-1.5 lb (250-700 g). The tail length of a Common Rat is 4.3”-9.4” (11-24 cm). Common Rats have a typical lifespan of 1-2 years in the wild and 2-3 years in captivity.
https://www.dimensions.com/element/common-rat

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domestic_canary_2.jpg
A yellow domestic canary on a cage.
Attribution: Yavor Uzunov
Public domain

Bird pics
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net
Public domain

Frog
Temporal range:
Early Jurassic - Present, 200-0 Ma
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (literally without tail in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" appeared in the early Triassic of Madagascar, but molecular clock dating suggests their origins may extend further back to the Permian, 265 million years ago.
They are also seen as environmental bellwethers, with declines in frog populations often viewed as early warning signs of environmental damage.
For the skin to serve as a respiratory organ, it must remain moist. This makes frogs susceptible to various substances they may encounter in the environment, some of which may be toxic and can dissolve in the water film and be passed into their bloodstream.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Litoria_phyllochroa.JPG
Attribution: Froggydarb
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Crocodile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nile_croc_couple_690V1510_-_Flickr_-_Lip_Kee.jpg
Attribution: Lip Kee from Singapore, Republic of Singapore
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

Platypus + Echidna pics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Monotreme_collage.jpg
Four of the five extant monotreme species: platypus (top-left), short-beaked echidna (top-right), western long-beaked echidna (bottom-left), and replica eastern long-beaked echidna (bottom-right).
Constituent files:
File:Platypus BrokenRiver QLD Australia.jpg
File:Long-beakedEchidna.jpg
File:Echidna in the Karawatha Forest - Radford.jpg
File:Zaglossus bartoni - MUSE.JPG
Attribution: Ypna
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

Monotremes
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous-Recent
[pic]
Four of the five extant monotreme species: platypus (top-left), short-beaked echidna (top-right), western long-beaked echidna (bottom-left), and replica eastern long-beaked echidna (bottom-right)
Monotremes (/ˈmɒnətriːmz/, from Greek μονός, monos ('single') and τρῆμα, trema ('hole'), referring to the cloaca) are one of the three main groups of living mammals, along with placentals (Eutheria) and marsupials (Metatheria).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme

The platypus is one of the few monotremes still in existence today. The egg-laying mammal was only recently discovered to have lived during the Jurassic period. After analyzing a Teinolophos jawbone in 2008, University of Texas paleontologist Tim Rowe discovered that platypuses dated back as far as 122 million years ago.
Platypuses are one of only two mammalian species that lay eggs, the other being echidnas, or spiny anteaters.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/animals-as-old-as-dinosaurs_n_6982300

Teinolophos
Temporal range: Aptian ~120-113 Ma Teinolophos is a prehistoric species of monotreme, or egg-laying mammal. It is known from four specimens, each consisting of a partial lower jawbone collected from the Wonthaggi Formation at Flat Rocks, Victoria, Australia. It lived during the Aptian age of the Lower Cretaceous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teinolophos

Platypus
Evolution, paleontology, and classification
Aquatically adapted platypus-like monotremes probably evolved from a more-generalized terrestrial monotreme. The first occurrence in the fossil record of a platypus-like monotreme is from about 110 million years ago, in the early Cretaceous Period, when Australia was still connected to South America by Antarctica.
https://www.britannica.com/animal/platypus

Salamander
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SpottedSalamander.jpg
Attribution: Camazine at English Wikipedia
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Salamander
Temporal range:
Late Jurassic - Present, 160-0 Ma
Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by a lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamander

Tortoise
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net
Public domain

Turtle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Florida_Box_Turtle_Digon3_re-edited.jpg
Florida Box Turtle
Attribution: Jonathan Zander (Digon3)
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Just because I have constructed an evolution tree with dinosaurs etc does not necessarily mean that I believe any of this or that I believe that any of the dinosaurs actually existed.

Fish pic:
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=341503&picture=fish-tropical-vintage
Karen Arnold has released this "Fish Tropical Vintage" image under Public Domain license.
Public Domain
Remix: with robin pic.

Flying fish pic:
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/pictures/380000/velka/fisch-tropisch-vintage-kunst-1609592373YjY.png
Andrea Stöckel has released this "Fish Tropical Vintage Art" image under Public Domain license.
Public Domain

Parrotfish pic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stoplight-parrotfish.jpg
Stoplight parrotfish (Sparisoma viride)
Attribution: Adona9
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Remix: cropped

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rotkehlchen_bird.jpg
European Robin
Attribution: Ting Chen
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Remix: with fish pic.

Sorting out dimensions:
"K–Pg boundary mammalian species were generally small, comparable in size to rats;"
so using rat dimensions to approximate length and weight of our fish-bird.

One of the largest muroids, it is a brown or grey rodent with a head and body length of up to 28 cm (11 in) long, and a tail slightly shorter than that. It weighs between 140 and 500 g (5 and 17 3⁄4 oz).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_rat

Common Rats have a height of 2.4”-3.5” (6-9 cm), body length between 6”-10” (15-25 cm), and an overall weight in the range of .6-1.5 lb (250-700 g). The tail length of a Common Rat is 4.3”-9.4” (11-24 cm). Common Rats have a typical lifespan of 1-2 years in the wild and 2-3 years in captivity.
https://www.dimensions.com/element/common-rat

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domestic_canary_2.jpg
A yellow domestic canary on a cage.
Attribution: Yavor Uzunov
Public domain

Bird pics
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net
Public domain

Frog
Temporal range:
Early Jurassic - Present, 200-0 Ma
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (literally without tail in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" appeared in the early Triassic of Madagascar, but molecular clock dating suggests their origins may extend further back to the Permian, 265 million years ago.
They are also seen as environmental bellwethers, with declines in frog populations often viewed as early warning signs of environmental damage.
For the skin to serve as a respiratory organ, it must remain moist. This makes frogs susceptible to various substances they may encounter in the environment, some of which may be toxic and can dissolve in the water film and be passed into their bloodstream.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Litoria_phyllochroa.JPG
Attribution: Froggydarb
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Crocodile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nile_croc_couple_690V1510_-_Flickr_-_Lip_Kee.jpg
Attribution: Lip Kee from Singapore, Republic of Singapore
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

Platypus + Echidna pics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Monotreme_collage.jpg
Four of the five extant monotreme species: platypus (top-left), short-beaked echidna (top-right), western long-beaked echidna (bottom-left), and replica eastern long-beaked echidna (bottom-right).
Constituent files:
File:Platypus BrokenRiver QLD Australia.jpg
File:Long-beakedEchidna.jpg
File:Echidna in the Karawatha Forest - Radford.jpg
File:Zaglossus bartoni - MUSE.JPG
Attribution: Ypna
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

Monotremes
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous-Recent
[pic]
Four of the five extant monotreme species: platypus (top-left), short-beaked echidna (top-right), western long-beaked echidna (bottom-left), and replica eastern long-beaked echidna (bottom-right)
Monotremes (/ˈmɒnətriːmz/, from Greek μονός, monos ('single') and τρῆμα, trema ('hole'), referring to the cloaca) are one of the three main groups of living mammals, along with placentals (Eutheria) and marsupials (Metatheria).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme

The platypus is one of the few monotremes still in existence today. The egg-laying mammal was only recently discovered to have lived during the Jurassic period. After analyzing a Teinolophos jawbone in 2008, University of Texas paleontologist Tim Rowe discovered that platypuses dated back as far as 122 million years ago.
Platypuses are one of only two mammalian species that lay eggs, the other being echidnas, or spiny anteaters.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/animals-as-old-as-dinosaurs_n_6982300

Teinolophos
Temporal range: Aptian ~120-113 Ma Teinolophos is a prehistoric species of monotreme, or egg-laying mammal. It is known from four specimens, each consisting of a partial lower jawbone collected from the Wonthaggi Formation at Flat Rocks, Victoria, Australia. It lived during the Aptian age of the Lower Cretaceous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teinolophos

Platypus
Evolution, paleontology, and classification
Aquatically adapted platypus-like monotremes probably evolved from a more-generalized terrestrial monotreme. The first occurrence in the fossil record of a platypus-like monotreme is from about 110 million years ago, in the early Cretaceous Period, when Australia was still connected to South America by Antarctica.
https://www.britannica.com/animal/platypus

Salamander
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SpottedSalamander.jpg
Attribution: Camazine at English Wikipedia
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Salamander
Temporal range:
Late Jurassic - Present, 160-0 Ma
Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by a lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamander

Tortoise
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net
Public domain

Turtle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Florida_Box_Turtle_Digon3_re-edited.jpg
Florida Box Turtle
Attribution: Jonathan Zander (Digon3)
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.


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Stephen Buckley
E-mail: greatesthoax [at] duck.com
Last revised: 5 Mar 2022.
Construction started about 10 Jul 2021.


Page design/construction Stephen Buckley 2021.