In life sciences this always feels like a oxymoron of sorts.the phrase invasive species.especially in paleontology. because there is clear evidence that what would classify as an invasive species ended up carrying the flag of the major forms of life existing all throughout earth's history. surely, it comes down to the idea that at one time every species alive must have classified as invasive. take australia, which fascinates me no end, due to the fact that it seperated and kept the largest indegineous population of marsuipials on earth. then humankind on a revist from the past brings rodentii and dogs. hard to think of dogs as invasive isnt it. but they were and due to the feral packs affectionately called dingos. they are. no less invasive then the walking catfish that swarm in rogue packs through some florida towns eating everything they can manage ravenously.then there are the africanized bees. which are held in check by competition mostly. which they excel at eliminating.picture that a single africanized queen merely has to invade a honey bee nest and viola, all the normal honey bees die off and are replaced by africanized agressive bees. it is almost like a horror story of a hermit crab that has an attitude taking over the shells and forcing the occupants to become them. somewhat unimaginable.

invasive though is always referred mostly by humans trying to maintain the garden of proverbial Eden manifestation of what is proper. they (humans) think they can see the future, forgetting of course that the earth 'thinks' in terms of millions of years. what may be a naturual progression of a species into another enviroment can be mistakenly viewed and maybe often is, as invasive. realistically i would wager a parsite type of animal as invasive. easily we can imagine the validity of that statement.but would we consider a beaver invasive? it must be, it pretty much changes everything that lives around it. how about a cuckoo bird. with its unique adoption behavior.killing of the true young birds in the nest of the alternate species of bird and then somehow fooling the much smaller adult birds to feed it. would that classify as invasive. i speculate that it probably would be. when viewed objectively.

some of the nitchze afficiandos may argue that we ourselves are invasive , highly and gravely more powerful then any other species on earth. this is however questionable. you see, it is not our nature to be that way. as foraging nomads we travelled all over, being highly successful in even our preancestory. in a way, we only became seemingly invasive when we began to copy the behaviors of what would be apparently true invasive species. irrigation , a tool for beavers, enabled alot of the problems we have now in modern times to exist.though , since it is not at heart what we are about or in our nature. i would argue that no, we are not invasive, just not really adapted to being the species of human that lives in large populations.

lionfish are a species that invade in the reefs and deep sea around florida. they have no naturual predator there. which is ironic, because we simply killed off the animal that would gladly have taken care of the situation.sharks. so sharks, in large numbers are seen as invasive. because, they interefre with the fisherman's catch. the question becomes really intresting. one could declare the cicada and its phenomanal cycle of life as being highly invasive. except there is so much ecology that depends on that time of mating.which brings us back to trying to understand what classifies as invasive.

in paleontology it is hard to even remotely recognize an invasive species. after all the world was shaped differently land wise and as a result many types of animals fossils appear in places that would normally not make much sense. the celocanth, which by all accounts must have been a reef like adapted fish has now moved to the trenches and deeper waters. this would make that anceint fish an invader.wouldnt you think?

the real problem is, what enables invasive species to occur.we like to lay claim that we , in our magnificent way have once again been the bad guy in this dept. but really, honestly, our contribution to true invasive species is hardly even worth mentioning.the whole invasive concept is a survial trait and is very real and practiced across species of every life. an example is probably corn, which has an enamel that makes it hard to full digest. it does taste good though, many animals eat it. they carry it then it is discard through the waste.pretty much anywhere the host went. complete with fertilizer.cant get more invasive then that i woud think. but what an amazing strategy.

in the earth's history, like i pointed out with the marsupials in australia, there are many different takes on the story.for example there is this kind of graph map. that was once created to show the limits the earth's primates will go south and north along the equator.yet, primates are highly succesful. that means even with the high competition,somehow primates won the territory,by being an invasive species.so, in my opinion, i think there has to be more research on what truly qualifies as invasive.

you never know we may be messing up a pre-stage of evolution.

at what point realistically would a sucessful species be considered a invasive one?

the wolves were an invasive species to eurpoe from north america, the humans were invasive for a large part of the prey that lived. we ate out the last remaining giant sloths, then in the 12 century ate all th elarge birds that were the staple of the larest winged bird in modern times.van haast eagles. it would seem that realistically, that every single species of animal on earth is an invasive species of sorts. even the koala bear and even rabbits (as any farmer would tell you). what makes them invasive is the monetary loss.slightly different perspective for something that wouldnt be there if something wasnt going down.the fact that life adapts and well none of the prehistoric invasive species prevented the advent of humankind. sometimes if left alone, things just work.

friend: this is the book i got on sharks. it is a kid book about them but it has information i want to see if you agree with.

me: i only know about fossil stuff so i don't know how i can help. but sure whatever, shoot.

friend: sharks can be found in all types of ocean and even fresh water such as the Mississippi river.

me: uh, it isn't really like that.(she looks at me like a fisherman that has caught her fish)

friend: how so? what does it mean the river anyways?

me: well, ok the best way to think of sharks is by imagining the rain forest. you have the upper, mid and bottom canopies. you would be safe in saying that sharks persist in all of them. actually can survive in multi levels, by interchanging between the three. kind of like a snake in the amazon that lives in the trees. some don't really even go to the ground. the whole life can work in the trees. same with sharks. the river , i am not sure if the Mississippi had any. at least not naturally there, doesn't really make sense. 

friend: why? it says it can live in fresh water like the Mississippi. (she shows me the first line first chapter of the book. to the side is a picture of a oceanic blue. beautiful shark).

me: well ok the way the fresh water thing works is like this. lets say there is a great flood of sorts. the river that empties out into the ocean is teeming with the potentially good source of food. some sharks will follow that river in. the one in jaws, the great white. it actually did go into the river system at the new jersey island. hunting for food, following the river in. i think two or three people lost their lives in that river inlet alone. as for the fresh water type, that is typically a bull shark. which doesn't go north. it goes south. from the gulf of mexico. one year there was a few of them that somehow ended up the other side, at California. which aside from being unique enough began to attack swimmers. the first recorded one in the media was this incredible tale, about how a guy rescued his young niece from a 4 or 5 footer, then after getting her to shore went back out and beat the shark crazily to try and reclaim the limb the shark had bitten off. he managed to do that and she was rushed to the hospital and apparently it was all good timing, as she still has the limb. according to the media at the time.

friend: so it was a bull shark? that lives in fresh water? what about the great white you mentioned? how come it went up the river how did it survive?

me: in the fresh water you mean?

friend :yea if it is a deep sea fish like you described before, how did it survive?

my eyes blinked blankly for a few seconds. before i submitted to once again being tasked with explaining stuff about biology.

me: well, the only real difference between fresh water and salt is the sodium percentage. the shark lives in the ocean, where there is a over abundance of salt. so it doesn't really store any in it's tissue.whereas, fresh water fish, store tons in their tissue in an effort to make up for the deficient. it really has nothing to do with the breath-ability or spurious ability to go between the two water types. the great white just wouldn't be able to live very long of a life span.matter of weeks may not be so bad.

friend: i see...

she points at a picture of the hammerhead shark. reading there is something like 150 or so species of shark. 'i thought there was more' she said.

me:'there is, sharks are a huge collective. one of the last remaining forms of cartilaginous fish still alive. i think there are only two more other lines. one is a lamprey i think and the other is like i think saw-fish. i cant remember if they bunch skates and rays into the shark one or not. but they belong too. dogfish are the oldest representation of sharks.i love them they are neat. they cover all over and one of the smallest fish is a dogfish.'..i pointed at the hammerhead picture. 'that shark is a perfect example of the way sharks have evolved. like from where they came from and as a existing advancement from the original lifeforms. do you know why hammerheads have that shape? '

she made a few pretty intelligent guesses.

i smiled then explained.'no , they are almost like the go between skates and rays, the head has electric and motion sensing nerves along the ridge. basically it is like a metal detector at a beach. they go along the sea bottom, waving their head over the ground, trying to sense for prey under the silt. this is basically how sharks began, as the medium spot of the ecological food chain in the devonian. there was a massive predator fish at the time that basically owned top dog billing. so, you see, like other fish, the shark adapted a school form of protection. in order to look big, against the predators that preyed on them. the hammerhead is the only shark that still really demonstrates this ability. by travelling huge schools. though , they are pretty big fish, you can only imagine what they were against...'

she looked at me.'things against sharks? really?'

me: hell yea, the ocean during the dinosaur times was full of top notch hunters.sharks didn't really get into the upper branch till the big rock did it's thing. the competition before that was too much.actually, ironically it was the sea reptiles that had that whole scene under wraps. the moasaur and pleisasaur.elasmosaur..you name it. even the crocodiles had a good fix on things at that time. sharks were like nomadic hunters, almost like what i would call the cat version of the ocean. the movies you see of the shark frenzy, where you will see the reef sharks spiraling and chasing the prey object up is akin to the same feeding behavior you see in seagulls. however, what happened was, after the dinos died out and the Oligocene came in, there was really no competition left. only the perciformes or boney fish. who mostly stuck around the fresh water and eventually over took all forms of the cartilaginous types. the grouper is an example of one form that has managed to survive. but, by that time, like mid Holocene, we had a new comer, megalodon, which theoretically could still be around. as they found a fresh none fossilized tooth of one , while trawling the sea bottom a few years back. very exciting stuff really.

friend: there are dinosaur sharks still around?

me: well pretty much that is synonymous when it comes to sharks to begin with.there were some pretty bizarre forms at the beginning, but generally speaking, once a shark always a shark is pretty much the point of thumb. though, to be honest there is no real way of telling.

friend: don't the fossils show that?

me: no, unfortunately, we only have their teeth. the cartilage didn't fossilize. so it is all guess work.

she sat quiet then asked how do we even know what they looked like then?

me: well, look at the hammerhead's tail, what do you see?

friend: well it is almost even like a whales tail only up and down.

me: right and what else? anything else? (she shook her head no) ok, i thumbed through the book finding a six gill shark. what do you see here? she commented that the lower tail fluke was smaller.

i flipped back and forth between the pictures and then explained. 

see how the backbone ends in the middle of the tail of the hammerhead? that means this shark is pretty modern. maybe around the time of the advent of mammals. which is interesting, but anyways, see how the tail of the six gill has the backbone actually making up the top part of the tail but the bottom part is flesh? this is an example of ancient shark. dogfish show this tendency as well. hence they are one of the oldest forms of shark in existence, some skates have this and the angelfish, which is as close to a skate a shark can get without being an actual skate, has the same feature. there is also as you notice a different amount of gills on some of these then the modern ones. so going by this, we can assume that the length of the back bone as it reached the tip of the tail in some represented the size of the fluke. sharks are very adapted for the water, having never left the ocean for land. it isn't hard to imagine what it would have looked like. even know, we have only the teeth, we can identify the teeth, then use this concept to re-image what it may have looked like. see that whale shark? it is modern, because of the tail. notice the spots? do you know what they are for? that is so it can look like a school of small fish.

she said: i thought they only eat plankton?

me:they do primarily but i have seen footage where one used that camouflage to lure a whole school of small schooling fish near it and it swallowed them all up.

she was silent. once a shark, always a shark i said.

we went through the book and i explained what i could. at the end i was frustrated, why don't they tell the kids the stuff i know i asked. she said well they are just introducing sharks to kids, you know, i said, there is no point in not giving the details to little kids.what do they hope to achieve? information she said. i asked about sharks? or our stupid need to constantly misinform about them?

i said as long as they keep denaturing and misleading people and misinforming what chance do the sharks have?

 

 

 

Archaeology is one of the more fantized aspects of anthropology, we all imagine dr jones racing through the jungle with the anthromorhpic monkey statue in hands being held to his breast like a linebacker on a mad sprint. real archeology however is affectonately called the science of garbage. which is really what it is and if you ask me , a lot more fun. but i am funny that way i guess. the real indiana jones would be making a made dash through the sahara desert from the marauding nomads, while carrying a contaner of freshly aquired ancient, long since dried fruit pits and seeds. yep, the miracle would be how did the clams get this far and what purpose did these shells serve since they were piled seperately from the animal bones. rather fascinating adventure, even know i made it up. i kind of want to try to figure it out. this is the joy of real archeology, ancient trash. believe me, it is absolutely exciting to find stuff that has been thrown away or discard by anceint prehumans.but he goes after idols and goes into tombs of famous people and he has a whip. yes, he is more or less a tomb-raiding historian then a true archeologist. archeology deals mostly with before written history. this places the entire indiana jones movies at questionable authority.rule of thumb, if it is during written history and more importantly dealing with any single individual of history or of historical relevance. it is not really archeology. so what is archaeology?

here is an example of real archaeology. there was a digsite , which i cant seem to find online at the moment, of neandrathal. i think it was in the mid east. where they found the discarded skulls and broken bones cast away a considerable distance from the cave openings. this was a neandrathal site so, it became more interesting when around the entrance to the caves, they found seed husks and other types of vegetation refuse. what of it? why is this like that? big question.. much thought... then suddenly the realization that neandrathals have a social hierarchy and the organs and skulls ( as well as the bone marrow) was eaten by the males. the females and the children were eating the seeds and vegetation. they were not of the same social order as the males. so the whole discovery was that there was a male oriented culture that existed in neandrathal that is reflected even in the feeding behaviors. that is like finding the ark of the covenant. totally mind blowing to consider.

 so as you consider that real archaeology is the science of ancient garbage, you start to arrive to various conclusions. that being that one person's garbage is another person's treasure.which is really the whole aspect of the concept. look at it this way, if you were an archaeologist from some far off future , investigating the refuse of this century, what would you see? brand name articles of the same objects and commodities. you would see for instance two rival milk companies claiming that their own milk is 100 percent pure but theirs taste better. which is realistically impossible. so why would we see this? because of trade, and trade is where the major part of ancient archaeology is priceless.trade in some form or the other existed long before sapiens and long before agriculture. so to learn and investigate trash or refuse of the ancient peoples and to discover a trash object to them, is to learn great amounts about how their culture and social behavior works. what the people were like, how they saw the world. long before the advent of agriculture caused us to create language to keep tallies of merchandise debt.

 an example of this is when humanity was still primarily a foraging hunter and had some horticulture tendencies thrown in for good measure. horticulture is like having a garden but you don't water it and it pretty much grows in the wild. it wasn't uncommon for one tribe leader to offer access to a field of some desired fruit or seeds as form of gift. the bigger the gift a tribal leader gave, the better the relations were with the other tribe. even some of the native american Indians preformed a similar thing by trying to out do each other by giving the best gift. so look at it this way, it was like being given the most exquisite gold necklace by a chief. what this does is increase the prestige of yourself to other tribe members. however it is not because you got the necklace, it is because you have received such a wonderful gift by the higher esteemed gift giver. so you would walk around showing off the necklace and showing that you have strong relationship with the respected gift giver.agriculture of course has changed a lot of this, but the need to show you have contact with a higher level elite in the group sense is displayed by the need to have the highest esteemed object. which is claimed to be in use by highly esteemed individuals. by obtaining objects that rich or high officials have , it looks like you have a connection to them. 

 in modern times this has changed drastically to being just the owner of an expensive article. the meaning as it had in the past is hardly ever if even remotely passed on.now one would think such an elaborate system of trade and its meaning back then would have to have some way of being understood and practiced. you would for instance have to demonstrate a connection with more then one tribe. language was certainly a barrier so, the natives in north america utilized a form of sign language which aided in the communication of what is worth and what is not and how to get it.this universal language is pretty unique for the natives in north america and not really found in other places of the world. yet, trade and it's meaning existed pretty much globally at some point. so, how did they communicate? 

 if you investigate tribes and people world over one thing stands out really plain. string games. practically every race and nationality has an example of them. they are simply games that are used to tell stories by making loops of strings appear like the subject at hand. it was practiced everywhere and still exists to this day. though it is considered a kid's game now, it was at one time a way of communicating complex stories and ideas to goups of people regardless of age and sometimes language. so in archaeology, string games are a fossilized cultural practice that exists to this day, whose meaning and purpose is completely separated and not fully recognized for it's true purpose.how far back does this go? the inuit claim to have a string game that depicts a mammoth. when it comes to archaeology and it's true use, we would never know this at all, if we were like indiana jones. focusing on only historical figures and objectives. there would be this undeniable question of how was this trade achieved so effectively that stone age tribes have fashion buried with them.incredible workmanship and creativity with materials that require skill. all because ideally they want to show that they were the receiver of a gift from an honored figure.