INTENSITY²
Start here => What's your crime? Basic Discussion => Topic started by: ZEGH8578 on December 03, 2012, 02:44:26 PM
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I got a question:
How do they stretch?
DO they stretch?
I am wanting to make a portrait of a dinosaur stretching, and I have found clear patterns in bird and mammal stretching, birds clearly stand out from mammals, but both have a very few prefered methods of stretching. This suggest method of stretching is an old, mostly unchanged genetic inheritage, mice and horses stretch the same way. Sparrows and swans stretch the same way.
But birds and mammals stretch differently.
Now, birds and dinos are related, but that doesnt mean dinos have NO relation to mammals.
If mammal stretch is unified, it means mammal stretching method is possibly older than the origin of dinosaurs, going far enough back to also exist in dinosaur heritage.
This of course makes me curious - how does lizards stretch? Or amphibians. These contain the "core heritage" of both dinosaurs and mammals.
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I believe Peter would be the guy to ask.
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What is this stretching you speak of?
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What is this stretching you speak of?
Don't you ever yawn, and stretch your arms over your head?
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I believe Peter would be the guy to ask.
Ah yes, I thought so
Let's hope he spots this thread then!
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What is this stretching you speak of?
Don't you ever yawn, and stretch your arms over your head?
No, but I have seen people do this in coffee commercials
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What is this stretching you speak of?
Don't you ever yawn, and stretch your arms over your head?
No, but I have seen people do this in coffee commercials
For future references, this is how people normally stretch:
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VjKnsRQ11tY/TAOM8wrP3aI/AAAAAAAABN0/57-H7E6L9Jk/s1600/40-Extreme+Yoga+Poses.jpg)
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Innteresting bit of nerwt trivia: many in the genus Taricha secrate the very same neurotoxin, tetrotrododoxin, as is found in the blue ringed octopus and fugu puffer fish.
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Innteresting bit of nerwt trivia: many in the genus Taricha secrate the very same neurotoxin, tetrotrododoxin, as is found in the blue ringed octopus and fugu puffer fish.
Nerwts are cool. :viking:
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Peter is :)
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I got a question:
How do they stretch?
DO they stretch?
I am wanting to make a portrait of a dinosaur stretching, and I have found clear patterns in bird and mammal stretching, birds clearly stand out from mammals, but both have a very few prefered methods of stretching. This suggest method of stretching is an old, mostly unchanged genetic inheritage, mice and horses stretch the same way. Sparrows and swans stretch the same way.
But birds and mammals stretch differently.
Now, birds and dinos are related, but that doesnt mean dinos have NO relation to mammals.
If mammal stretch is unified, it means mammal stretching method is possibly older than the origin of dinosaurs, going far enough back to also exist in dinosaur heritage.
This of course makes me curious - how does lizards stretch? Or amphibians. These contain the "core heritage" of both dinosaurs and mammals.
I've never seem them do a full-body stretch like a dog or cat would do, but they do yawn and seem to stretch their jaw muscles, and maybe stretch their necks a little in the process.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMQaAychnp4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMQaAychnp4#)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-PXzt_qp_U (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-PXzt_qp_U#)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=antcc2mxqMY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=antcc2mxqMY#ws)
I've seen lots of species of newt and salamander yawning and the more terrestrial ones sometimes follow it up with some extra lip-smacking movements, like this frilled dragon is doing (just a video I came across while looking for yawning axolotls):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcLd9uJfiIo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcLd9uJfiIo#ws)
They're generally very conservative about their movements, typically staying completely still when they don't have something specific to do, except for the occasional yawn and the buccal pumping they use to breathe (or gill twitching in the case of larvae and neotenous species like axolotls).
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More yawn videos (lizards and a snake):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NjuVBzN2q8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NjuVBzN2q8#)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNnywV01Ot4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNnywV01Ot4#ws)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LILlFbHsFP4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LILlFbHsFP4#ws)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7qn61PBGPk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7qn61PBGPk#)
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Fish yawning:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_6vziZB7Ck (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_6vziZB7Ck#)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zXcM14729U (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zXcM14729U#)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLdQCmH0pQI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLdQCmH0pQI#)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DukgAQuFTDw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DukgAQuFTDw#)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdD32iqR1QM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdD32iqR1QM#)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon#Saliva (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon#Saliva)
Some truly revolting mating relationship/mating rituals....vomiting, shitting, and rolling around in rotting animal viscera to deter predation from cannibalistic larger monitor lizard adults by the young.
If dragon breath is nasty, kommodo dragon breath has to be much worse :P
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Those are interesting videos.
The only one who seemed like doing half a stretch was the chameleon. The little body-movement it did might be interpreted as some kind of a "proto-stretch" perhaps, where it does his yawning, and then does a quick little body-jerk, just to loosen itself a bit, before going back to standing still the rest of the day?
I always assumed yawning and stretching go hand in hand, but apparently stretching SEEMS to be something limited to higher amniotes, while yawning obviously go far, far back. It struck me how we still consider yawning somewhat of a mystery, and yet it has gone uncorrected by evolution for hundreds of millions of years.
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Yawning crocodiles:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsyDb-HJgkE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsyDb-HJgkE#)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=78fCOu5r7hc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78fCOu5r7hc#)
I'd guess stretching evolved as an elaboration on yawning, maybe as tetrapods became more active and flexible and put higher demands on the rest of their skeletal muscles beyond their jaw muscles. In newts and salamanders, the jaw muscles are the only ones that need to deal with prolonged and intense exertion; they often clamp down on a large worm and spend 30-60 minutes slowly eating it, exerting continuous pressure on it with their jaws to hold onto it and periodically shaking their head from side to side to keep the worm from burrowing into the soil while they gradually swallow more and more of it. If they get exhausted before they're done, the worm escapes. With the albino axolotls, the jaw muscles become visibly pink from the increased blood supply to them when they're wrestling a worm.
All the other muscles have quite modest demands placed on them, and don't need to function for long periods or at high intensities. Locomotion in newts and salamanders is characterised by very frequent resting; they might walk or swim for a few seconds or a few tens of seconds and then rest for at least as long, and they don't keep it up for very long even with the frequent breaks.
They're also not all that flexible; they can't lick their own cloacae like dogs and cats and they don't have much dynamic range to their movements. Their bodies are kind of intermediate in flexibility between fish and mammals.
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Thanx, that's all sensible input. I didn't realize amphibians were so handicapped, compared to even lizads, whom can be quite active, but still require that lengthy rest afterwards. Like you imply, stretching may be something unique to warm-blooded, fully active creatures. Cows walk non-stop while they graze, chickens walk around non stop, both are warm blooded.
That 2nd crocodile's yawn is awesome btw, it looks like he's really trying to urge it on :D
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The life-strategies of amphibians are a bit different from lizards. They're mostly adapted for colder temperatures, so they don't have the comparatively high metabolic rate of a lizard that's been basking in the sun, and instead of having claws, teeth, scales and the ability to quickly escape from predators, they rely on hiding, being nocturnal and having toxic glands in their skin, often with warning colouration, either all over the body or just on the belly. The ones that just have warning colours on their belly have an unken reflex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unkenreflex) where they show off their underside when threatened. Some of them will roll over and play dead, too.
They also have much less sturdy and less well developed skeletons than lizards that don't provide much in the way of attachment points for muscles and wouldn't stand up the forces of large, powerful muscles acting on them. Here's a skeletal comparison:
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Indeed, most striking is the vertebral collumn! I have seen many drawings and schematics of amphibian skeletons, but I always assumed they were simply flawed or rushed drawings, or I just failed to appreciate the implication of the much more delicate skeleton. Seeing how slowly a salamander walks across flat ground, compared to the quick, and energetic scurrying of a lizard, it does make sense of course.
I love still learning new stuff! :D