Were there ever any 6-limbed animals other than insects?

[carnivorousplant]

@wevets

I, too, have never heard, read, or otherwise encountered “algar” as the singular of algae - only alga.

It’s a bunch of darn foreigners who can’t speak English, confusing honest Americans with their silly dead languages!
I’m sure I misremember the spelling.

[D18]

Northern, you might enjoy taking a look at fossils from BC’s Burgess Shale. There are all sorts of weird and wonderful phyla there with a range of body configurations. Now, I don’t know if any of them have six legs, but if you’re looking for a range of architectures that once populated the earth, it’s really cool!

[carnivorousplant]

Stephen J Gould wrote about the Burgess shale, and was a proponent of punctuated equilibrium.

[D18]

[HIJACK]

carnivorous, I learned about Burgess Shale through that book by Gould. (Wonderful Life, for those interested.) As it was written quite a while ago, is it still relevant? If not, is there another treatment of the subject that brings current knowledge up to date?

[/HIJACK]

[Blue_Blistering_Barnacle]

@Colibri

No fish, even the most primitive ones, have ever had more than two sets of paired fins, which are the kind of fins from which the limbs of terrestrial vertebrates evolved.

Fish have medial fins along the midline of the body, usually one or two dorsal fins, a tail fin, and an anal fin, but these are unpaired and have not evolved into limbs.

In some vertebrates, such as some monkeys and other climbing animals and kangaroos, the tail has functionally evolved into a fifth limb, but that’s as far as it goes.

@Chronos

And don’t forget, even a few where the nose has evolved into a fifth limb.

So, if you crossed an elephant and a monkey, you could get a six-limbed mammal?

[carnivorousplant]

@Blue_Blistering_Barnacle

So, if you crossed an elephant and a monkey, you could get a six-limbed mammal?

No, you get elephantmonkeysin(theta).

[MrDibble]

@D18

[HIJACK]

carnivorous, I learned about Burgess Shale through that book by Gould. (Wonderful Life, for those interested.) As it was written quite a while ago, is it still relevant?

Yes and no. Gould covers a lot of the finds well, but he shoehorns everything into his extreme catastrophism paradigm. It seems to be current opinion that most of the Burgess fauna belong as stem members to existing phyla, not Gould’s wholly extinct “problematica”. Also, there have been more Lagerstätten discovered and worked on since then, which have served to show that elements of the Burgess fauna was more widespread.

If not, is there another treatment of the subject that brings current knowledge up to date?
[/HIJACK]

While i personally find him a little problematic (in how thirsty he is to reconcile evolution and religion) Simon Conway Morris is probably the leading expert on the Burgess, and his The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals is a rebuttal to Gould but also a good overview. Still a little dated, I’m sure, and the end bits that argue for the inevitability of human evolution (or something like us) vs Gould’s championing of the enormous luck involved in our existence didn’t sit as well with me.

[dracoi]

@Blue_Blistering_Barnacle

So, if you crossed an elephant and a monkey, you could get a six-limbed mammal?

Don’t cross an elephant; they have long memories. Also, don’t cross a monkey; they throw poop. Very bad combination.

[rbroome]

@dracoi

Don’t cross an elephant; they have long memories. Also, don’t cross a monkey; they throw poop. Very bad combination.

A four armed monkey would be really really bad! eww.

[Ignotus]

Wait; tails and trunks count as limbs? So, how are most insects six-limbed? Wings should also count, right?

[carnivorousplant]

@Ignotus

Wait; tails and trunks count as limbs? So, how are most insects six-limbed? Wings should also count, right?

Flying Monkeys.

[Colibri]

@Ignotus

Wait; tails and trunks count as limbs? So, how are most insects six-limbed? Wings should also count, right?

See post #24. Wings count if they are jointed.

[Ignotus]

@Colibri

See post #24. Wings count if they are jointed.

Earwigs?

[MrDibble]

@Ignotus

Earwigs?

Their wings aren’t jointed. Folded (like fuckin’ origami!) but not jointed.

[Ignotus]

@MrDibble

Their wings aren’t jointed. Folded (like fuckin’ origami!) but not jointed.

Isn’t this a pretty lame distinction, though? They can certainly fold and unfold them at will. And where are the joints in the elephant’s trunk or the octopus’/squid’s tentacles?

[carnivorousplant]

@Ignotus

Isn’t this a pretty lame distinction, though? They can certainly fold and unfold them at will. And where are the joints in the elephant’s trunk or the octopus’/squid’s tentacles?

I believe that a limb must have an elbow to qualify as arms or legs.

[HMS_Irruncible]

@Sage_Rat

No idea, but I was just reminded to not Google for “sextaped”.

BAHA! Also avoid ‘unitard.’

[Ignotus]

@carnivorousplant

I believe that a limb must have an elbow to qualify as arms or legs.

Well, we are talking about an extended definition of “limb”. Previous posters seem to accept trunks and tentacles as such, neither of which possesses an elbow. I agree that they are, to some degree, the functional equivalent of limbs. But it certainly has nothing to do with skeletal structure.

[carnivorousplant]

@Ignotus

Well, we are talking about an extended definition of “limb”. Previous posters seem to accept trunks and tentacles as such, neither of which possesses an elbow. I agree that they are, to some degree, the functional equivalent of limbs. But it certainly has nothing to do with skeletal structure.

Than a limb must have a joint?

[Ignotus]

@carnivorousplant

Than a limb must have a joint?

Again: what joints has an octopus?