Great photo selection with the shifty looking seal (gotta love the whites of caniform eyes) and a nice little summary of the article.<p>One thing about zoology and animal morphology is that we all know how important feeding is for animals but only real nerds love the digestive tract. Transport, skin, and reproduction are far more glamorous; but the mammalian sense of smell and mouth parts gave us such an advantage in the tertiary period.<p>It’s interesting that this sort of feeding never arose in the sea. I wonder what the ancestors of the pinnipeds who first ventured back into water ate…
If you find this evolutionary history interesting then I can't recommend PBS Eons enough. It's a great youtube series on the subject: well researched, a dense but breezy pace, and the paleo art + fossil images help convey information without being overly dry.<p>Here's the one about this subject: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vQ55ToQeWI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vQ55ToQeWI</a>
"Pinnipeds evolved about thirty million years ago. They showed up first in the colder parts of the northern hemisphere, <i>then in the Antarctic</i>, then in temperate zones."<p>That's an interesting sequence, given that the continents then were about where they are now.
Do not neglect the Paper Nautilus, a kind of Mediterranean octopus.<p><a href="https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/the-seamstress-and-the-secrets-of-the-argonaut-shell/" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/the-seamstress-and-th...</a><p><a href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/12/26/jeanne-villepreux-power-argonaut/" rel="nofollow">https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/12/26/jeanne-villepreux-...</a><p>Jeanne Villepreux-Power invented marine biology, single-handed in the early 19th century.<p>She observed them repairing a hole in their shell by gluing on a found patch.
> If you’re inclined to be pedantic about the nautilus’ limbs and say that /actually/ they are “arms” and not “tentacles” because tentacles have suckers on them, then (a) congratulations on remembering that long-ago biology class, and (b) see Footnote 1, above.<p>Something tells me an arm is a mechanical limb composed of connected poles that turn at their joints. And a hose-like limb without suckers should have its own name. A foot is an "arm", a penis is something else.
Also: <a href="https://crookedtimber.org/2024/02/19/death-lonely-death/#comment-830213" rel="nofollow">https://crookedtimber.org/2024/02/19/death-lonely-death/#com...</a><p>about Voyager 1, recently in the news
I wanted to go fossil hunting (and for ammonites in particular) after watching these guys just haul them out:<p><a href="https://youtu.be/9XWhdPL58is" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/9XWhdPL58is</a>
I really enjoyed this article, but I was really disappointed. For some reason I thought it was going to evolve into a Lovecraftian epic of how the grand and horrifying civilization of the ancient cephalopods and their relatives was thwarted by another species, one who paved the way for our own ignorant and doomed civilization to thrive.<p>I kept this feeling until the very end [spoiler] even when it was revealed to be seals I held out hope they could be a Lovecraftian player in a grand epic saga.