What are the most advanced species on the planet?

[Doghouse]

Hokay, so the question is in the title, but I figured I ought to provide a little detail on what I'm asking. Basically it just occurred to me after watching some film of really ancient shark species found kicking around in the deep ocean somewhere, if these creatures are harking back to the dinosaurs, then what is at the opposite end of the spectrum? So, I put it to you wise bods, what are the most advanced creatures on the planet? Also if ancient species can kind of float along without having to evolve too much at the bottom of the sea, which environments provoke the most evolution? Are there ecological hotbeds for evolution, human interference and selective breeding notwithstanding?

To narrow the field a bit, I don't want to count micro-organisms or anything like bacteria or viruses and such like.

Inquiring mind wants to know.

 

[lrkun]

Hokay, so the question is in the title, but I figured I ought to provide a little detail on what I'm asking. Basically it just occurred to me after watching some film of really ancient shark species found kicking around in the deep ocean somewhere, if these creatures are harking back to the dinosaurs, then what is at the opposite end of the spectrum? So, I put it to you wise bods, what are the most advanced creatures on the planet? Also if ancient species can kind of float along without having to evolve too much at the bottom of the sea, which environments provoke the most evolution? Are there ecological hotbeds for evolution, human interference and selective breeding notwithstanding?

To narrow the field a bit, I don't want to count micro-organisms or anything like bacteria or viruses and such like.

Inquiring mind wants to know.

How do you first define the word advanced? Atleast may give us a standard to start the search?

 

[Doghouse]

Hokay, so the question is in the title, but I figured I ought to provide a little detail on what I'm asking. Basically it just occurred to me after watching some film of really ancient shark species found kicking around in the deep ocean somewhere, if these creatures are harking back to the dinosaurs, then what is at the opposite end of the spectrum? So, I put it to you wise bods, what are the most advanced creatures on the planet? Also if ancient species can kind of float along without having to evolve too much at the bottom of the sea, which environments provoke the most evolution? Are there ecological hotbeds for evolution, human interference and selective breeding notwithstanding?

To narrow the field a bit, I don't want to count micro-organisms or anything like bacteria or viruses and such like.

Inquiring mind wants to know.

How do you first define the word advanced? Atleast may give us a standard to start the search?

By advanced I suppose I mean most far removed from their ancestors. So for instance the frilled shark is an ancient species that hasn't had to evolve very far, but what's at the other end of the spectrum? What species have evolved fastest and furthest from their related fossils?

 

[Prolescum]

Laboratory mice

 

[lrkun]

Laboratory mice

How come?

 

[monitoradiation]

Well I'd say that sharks are pretty adapted to what they are - predators. I would think that they are "advanced" in that sense that they had no need for further modification.

It would seem that you're looking for a species that is the most... different, from a certain ancestor. I'm not sure anyone would use that as a metric and I'm unaware of a method to quantify that outside of DNA differences...

 

[Prolescum]

Laboratory mice

How come?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy :lol:

 

[RichardMNixon]

Laboratory mice

Nah, I'll do you one further: E. coli. At the rate bacteria reproduce and therefore mutate, they are easily the most genetically distinct from their ancestors.

Now if you're talking about the organism with the largest genome, that's this fella here:

If you're talking about the "most evolved" species, than you're wandering into a creationist fallacy. Humans aren't "more evolved" than dirty monkeys, we've both had the same amount of time to evolve, we've just evolved in different ways.

 

[lrkun]

Laboratory mice

Nah, I'll do you one further: E. coli. At the rate bacteria reproduce and therefore mutate, they are easily the most genetically distinct from their ancestors.

Now if you're talking about the organism with the largest genome, that's this fella here:

If you're talking about the "most evolved" species, than you're wandering into a creationist fallacy. Humans aren't "more evolved" than dirty monkeys, we've both had the same amount of time to evolve, we've just evolved in different ways.

Hokay, so the question is in the title, but I figured I ought to provide a little detail on what I'm asking. Basically it just occurred to me after watching some film of really ancient shark species found kicking around in the deep ocean somewhere, if these creatures are harking back to the dinosaurs, then what is at the opposite end of the spectrum? So, I put it to you wise bods, what are the most advanced creatures on the planet? Also if ancient species can kind of float along without having to evolve too much at the bottom of the sea, which environments provoke the most evolution? Are there ecological hotbeds for evolution, human interference and selective breeding notwithstanding?

To narrow the field a bit, I don't want to count micro-organisms or anything like bacteria or viruses and such like.

Inquiring mind wants to know.

http://www.coolscienceexperimentsforkids.com/2009/11/what-fish-can-survive-without-water/ <-- nice article about lungfish

 

[DeathofSpeech]

The living ones...

The various species from which the living species evolved from were given a gold watch and a party and then retired as no longer viable.
The remaining species are the best example of competitive adaptation for their particular clades.

As conditions like environment are changing, we see those species which are dependent upon some specific specialization dying off.
Pandas, nearly extinct now due to human encroachment on their natural habitats. Polar bear losing their hunting grounds to retreating ice.

Things that can accelerate speciation include isolation, scarcity of food, a food resource which is unutilized or underutilized, rapid change in climate or environment, a source of shelter which places a species out of reach from predation... any change that upsets the status quo. The only requirement is that the change not be so rapid that it kills 100% of the species.

Manatee share common ancestry with elephants. They used to be land dwelling. They still have vestigial hoof pads. Something made it advantageous for them to relocate to an aquatic environment and to remain there long enough that further selection of traits advantageous to the environment could occur.
They possibly fled from something or several things that ate them; predators that were prolific enough that returning to land, even briefly was a bad idea.
There also had to have been an underutilized food resource to allow them to remain in the water or they would have died off. It's possible, even likely, that they originally lived on land and fed on aquatic food, retreating to the safety of the water when threatened. Those that adapted to allow them to remain in the water might have been at further disadvantage on land, so those who ventured up on land couldn't flee to safety as quickly while those who remained on land became extinct by predation... and those who remained in the water, remained out of reach of the predators that found them tasty.

They didn't necessarily have to have a predator problem, and it's possible that the only thing required to drive them into the water was an available food source, but if they weren't fleeing predation, it's more probable that there would be more examples of the family still living... stragglers.
Like the answer to the question "if man came from apes why are there still apes?" When the precedent ancestral line remains viable, it sticks around. When it isn't viable, then sometimes the descendants are. When that happens the descendants can become very lonely examples of the only species remaining in the taxonomic family or even the entire order. The monotremes for example.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Although the question as phrased is hopelessly sophomoric, I trust we can all recognize the spirit with which it was intended.

That said there are still several ways we could choose to go with this... if he means the best survivor then it's probably a toss-up between bacteria in general and this bastard:

If we're contrasting the coolest adaptations, then my vote is on Cephalopods:

If we mean the most numerous/greatest biomass then, again, bacteria as a group, or this surely:

If we're talking about the newest kids on the block well then... shit I don't know, some sort of aquatic or flying mammal? Those lizards with new cecal valves? Nylonase bacteria?

If we're talking about the most innovative, intelligent, powerful, and good looking well then obviously:

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{TEXT}

 

[Laurens]

Advanced in what sense?

Owls are pretty advanced at seeing in the dark, but they're shit at swimming...

 

[SynapticMisfire]

Hokay, so the question is in the title, but I figured I ought to provide a little detail on what I'm asking. Basically it just occurred to me after watching some film of really ancient shark species found kicking around in the deep ocean somewhere, if these creatures are harking back to the dinosaurs, then what is at the opposite end of the spectrum? So, I put it to you wise bods, what are the most advanced creatures on the planet?

It's difficult to come up with an objective measure of the degree to which a species is more or less advanced than any other species, but given two species, it's possible to compare them to what's known about their last common ancestor and use some metric to decide which species has diverged more from their shared ancestral state.

If tiger sharks and humans were compared to an ancestral Gnathostomata, I would regard humans as being more highly derived. If humans and the common raven were compared to an ancestral Amniote, I might decide that the common raven was more derived, but I'd have a hard time picking one over the other without some rigorous system on which to base my comparisons.

 

[Nautyskin]

Although the question as phrased is hopelessly sophomoric, I trust we can all recognize the spirit with which it was intended.

That said there are still several ways we could choose to go with this... if he means the best survivor then it's probably a toss-up between bacteria in general and this bastard:

Those things just don't give a fuck.

Freeze 'em. Cook 'em. Dehydrate 'em. Poison 'em. Throw 'em into outer space. They love it and come back for more, smoking a cigar sayin' "That the best you got?"

Freakin ay.

 

[Doghouse]

If you're talking about the "most evolved" species, than you're wandering into a creationist fallacy. Humans aren't "more evolved" than dirty monkeys, we've both had the same amount of time to evolve, we've just evolved in different ways.

Same amount of time, different number of generations. But also given the amount of good old fashioned luck in evolution I don't think it can be expected that all species evolve at the same rate over the same time, I mean just because a random mutation yields a superior characteristic doesn't guarantee the bearer of that gene will survive to pass it on. If I understand the theory correctly (a big if) random beneficial mutations aren't common, so a species where the bearer of said mutation gets munched is going to have to wait until it, or a similar mutation, crops up again. Sheer rotten luck could set a species back generations.

 

[lrkun]

Guys, could you post some reference with respect to your suggested answers? I fancy, it'd be fun knowing the reference or grounds for such.

 

[Deleted member 619]

Same amount of time, different number of generations. But also given the amount of good old fashioned luck in evolution I don't think it can be expected that all species evolve at the same rate over the same time, I mean just because a random mutation yields a superior characteristic doesn't guarantee the bearer of that gene will survive to pass it on.

Correct. More importantly, time isn't actually a factor, except in the sense that a shorter generation time will allow quicker divergence. In reality, it's only the number of generations that matters, because mutations are cumulative over generations.

If I understand the theory correctly (a big if) random beneficial mutations aren't common, so a species where the bearer of said mutation gets munched is going to have to wait until it, or a similar mutation, crops up again.

There's a thread of truth in there, but beneficial mutations are actually a good deal more common than you might think, and not least because whether a particular gene mutation is beneficial or not is most often a product not of the mutation itself but the environment in which the allele finds itself. When it is said that beneficial mutations are rare, this has to be taken in context, and in this case, the context is the simple fact that there are many more ways for a mutation to be detrimental than to be beneficial. The vast majority of mutations are actually benign at the point of occurence (although they may become beneficial or detrimental later, given other, complementary mutations). It wouldn't be stretching the point too far to say that a beneficial mutation probably happens in every single generation but, when taken overall, whether the benefit is actually felt is a function of the environment. This is what natural selection is all about, and it goes to your earlier point above. That's why we laugh at those who assert natural selection as 'survival of the fittest', when it should really read 'survival of the sufficiently fit, on average'.

Sheer rotten luck could set a species back generations.

Yes, except that the word 'back' has no meaning in this context. Still, not entirely unrigorous.

 

[TheFlyingBastard]

This is the most evolved being on earth:

No question about it.

 

[nasher168]

This is the most evolved being on earth:

No question about it.

WTF? What is that?

 

[Doghouse]

This is the most evolved being on earth:

No question about it.

WTF? What is that?

There's definitely a great Yo Momma joke to be had with that picture, but I'm far too polite to make it. Other than that I have no idea.