Similar Phenomena in nature.


The blue whale ( Above picture) is a mammal and the whale shark ( Bottom) a fish.

 

 Porcupines are closer related to whales than to fishes. Hard to believe if someone looks at the circumstances under which the two species exists. The whales natural habitat mimics that of a fish more closely and based on anatomy one would easily be forgiven to think that a whale is closer related to a fish than a porcupine.






All of the above are rodents. Right on top the porcupine, below that the beaver, below that the Capybara from South - America, below that a mouse and at the bottom a squirrel. All belong to the order rodentia and to the class mammalia.  



But first of, both are mammals. So even if a porcupine mimics some Australian monotreme or some hedgehog who is an insectivore more closely, it is closer related to a rat or mouse or even beaver then to the above mentioned (Rodents) I suppose parallel evolution is to blame for the confusion. A bit like with the dolphin and shark who are not from the same species either ( One is a mammal and the other one a fish) but the body shape mimics each other. 


The hedgehog ( Above) is an insectivore and a placental mammal while the echidna ( Below) from Australia belongs to the monotreme's. The platypus from Australia is also a monotreme like the echidna. Both are rare in their kind in that they are the only egg lying mammals. The spines make them look like they could be closely related but they are not.



Nature is full of interesting coincidences and phenomena. Most people take for granted what they see but when one really starts to look around and ask questions one start to get the answers and they are sometimes amazing facts. My intension is to solicit all kinds of interesting facts on this blog. I hope people who read this find it interesting and stimulating. Even with prehistoric creatures and more recent species we find similar traits. For instance Ichthyosaurus, the modern day shark and the dolphin had similar appearances. 



The shark ( Above) is a fish while Ichthyosaurus ( Middle) belonged to the reptile family and the dolphin (Below) is a mammal.




Above an armored dinosaur with the name Ankylosaurus and below an extinct prehistoric mammal with the name Doedicurus. Doedicurus had a club like tail just like Ankylosaurus.


Above pictures credited to : Blue whale - happymag.tv, whale shark - Telegraph.co.uk, porcupine - southafrica.co.za, beaver - thetimes.co.uk, capybara - livescience.com, mouse - theconversation.com, squirrel - theguardian.com, hedgehog - thesprucepets.com, echidna - wired.com, Ichthyosaurus/ shark/dolphin - beta.capeia.com, ankylosaurus - amazon.com/ Papo - The - Dinosaur - Figure - ankylosaurus, doedicurus - za.pinterest.com

Comments

  1. Elizabeth Fiction WritingMarch 14, 2021 at 5:19 AM

    It's incredible how these animals appear so similar, yet they are from different species. Especially the similarity between the hedgehog and echidna makes it easy to think that they're closely related, when in fact they aren't. Very interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rémil GresenbachMay 18, 2021 at 5:31 AM

    Never knew a porcupine is a rodent! :D

    ReplyDelete

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