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| Macrauchenia patachonica (Artist's impression) |
News that evolutionary biology has closed another gap and found no gods in it, left creationists totally uninterested again today.
The gap was one that Darwin pondered over - the origin of two of the recently-extinct (geologically speaking) South American ungulates. They seemed to be a mixture of hippopotamus, rhinoceros, rodent, camel, and even elephant in that they appeared to have a small trunk. Some biologists had suggested they may be related to African species such as elephants or aardvarks while others thought they may be related to South American species like armadillos and sloths.
We have resolved one of the last unresolved major problems in mammalian evolution: the origins of the South American native ungulates.
Now scientists have succeeded in using a new analytical technique on collagen recovered from the bones of Toxodon and Macrauchenia and shown them to be related to the mammalian group which includes horses, tapirs and rhinoceroses.Ian Barnes, molecular evolutionary biologist
Natural History Museum, London
Natural History Museum, London
Collagen is a fibrous, structural protein which is even more stable than DNA. It is found widely in a mammalian body including skin, hair, horn, hooves as well as bone. This new technique allows samples of collagen to be compared to that of other animals and, just as with comparing the DNA in the same gene from different animals, arranging the degree of difference in a family tree, showing their evolutionary relationship.
As with every other 'mystery' in science, the answer turned out to be something perfectly natural with no magic and no gods involved.
The gap which creationist have to close now is how come two species which went extinct some 4,000 years before the Earth and life on it were created by magic just 6,000 years ago, were related to animals that hadn't been created yet? If any creationist can close this gap with evidence, please feel free to show it here.
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