Why is this Blog called Marsupials Blog and it is About Convergent Evolution and Biogeography?

Lets take a time machine to millions and billions of years ago. There was an animal called the Pantodont (Google it) it was living a good sweet life in pangea (Australia already broke off of Pangea so this makes some sense) Mr. Pantodont was on a tree minding his own business when it fell in to the Indian ocean on a tree. The tree had bugs and leaves to keep the little fella alive. He sailed across the Indian ocean with bright days and dark nights with a comforting sunset.  He got to the magical land of Australia (ooh Ahhh!) it adapted to its new surroundings and then got a pouch to carry its young because it was far to get food. It became the first marsupial and then it kept on evolving and that’s why marsupials exist..

If you made it this far even though this is not to long comment: what I cant believe unicorns existed!

biogeography example 2

I already did a post on this but I thought the last one was kind of general so I am writing a second one to get more details. Biogeography is when 1 specie’s is split up from Pangea or other islands look at picture 1 below. you can see how the animals lived in the colored lines and when it broke of some went to south America and some went to Africa (not only those two but that’s what I am using for the example) in south America there is more mountains and it is 11,000 feet above sea level so there it may be harder to get water and in Africa it is hotter. With the heat from Africa and the fact that it may be harder to get water or it could be colder the animals must adapt to these changes and the word adapt is a part of the word adaptation which is when an animal may grow more fur to survive in a colder climate. They adapt and after a few hundreds of years they are a new species from each other. I hope this helped you understand biogeography more and if you are an overachiever you can check out last post and it is about Charles Darwin and his theory. Thanks for making it this far into the post!

picture 1

Charles Darwin and Biogeography

This is a post about how Charles Darwin created the theory about biogeography and you have no idea what that is I have post about it so you should check it out (no that’s an order!) if you want to know continue reading!
Charles Darwin was a naturalist and if you have been living under a rock lately you have no clue what that is. A naturalist is a person who studies leaves, beetles and other living things. Charles Darwin was in the Galapagos islands. He realized that some of the animals there were very alike to south America’s main land. That’s when he created the definition Biogeography.

Bio: The Greek root for life and in this case it means a life study

Geo: The root Geo means earth

Graph: The root Graph means to write or record in written form

words you may need to know before reading this blog

this is my second time writing this because the first time the computer died so this may not be as good as the first one. i am sorry about that.

Convergent evolution: Convergent evolution is when 2 animals share the same mutation, Trait or adaptation. I did a post a few weeks ago you can check that out below.

Biogeography: biogeography is when one species is split up and is forced to live in a new habitat. the animals must adapt to there new surroundings like grow more fur if it is cold in there new surrounding or build endurance to get water or food. The adapt so much that all of the characteristics that make them different from others is changes and then it is pronounced a new species.

Adaptation: an adaptation is when an animal or human must change there ways to survive. the same example as before they nay grow more fur to survive in a cold climate. A chameleon can camouflage which can help it survive because the predator may not see them.

Mutation: a mutation is when someone or an animal’s genetic code is tweaked that could change their fur color, they could be taller or shorter. not all mutations have benefits. some are not beneficial like some diseases and some that would not be useful like more fur in a climate were you don’t need any more.

Pangea: Pangea is when all 7 continents (unless you are from another planet you have no clue about this) were all together,one continent. If you look on a globe you can see that it is like a puzzle. you can see where continents were together.

i hope this is useful and i am going to post my sources soon when i am done.

Questions! (sorry Char!)

1. How many hairy- nose wombats are there?

2. What is the Tasmanian tiger cats status? (vulnerable, Endangered Ect.)

3. The __________ and the Quoll is an example of biogeography

4. what does Dayurus mean and it it the scientific name for what animal?

5. what is the status of the Koala’s (vulnerable, Endangered Ect.)

The world according to Patrick (becoming viral)

if you have not seen the earlier post you have no idea who Patrick is. Patrick is the worlds oldest, biggest weighing 39 KG (85.9803 LB) and the cutest (in lots of peoples opinions, including mine) Patrick’s owner at the zoo posted this on facebook:

within 24 hours Patrick revived 6 million+ followers on facebook. There was over 8,000 comments and most were poeple saying they had met him in years past. This may be a cool post but what is making him life for so long? there is no real answer but the people who care for him. this is a pointless post but it is fun!

Koala 101

like there post on Quoll this will be a question and Answer post! The koala is an example of convergent evolution with the brown bear

Q. what is the Koala’s life span life span?

A. naturally it is from 13-18 (wild)

Q.how long do they sleep each day?

A. the Koala sleeps from 18-20 hours a day so that’s why you have to be quiet at some zoos when you see the Koala’s

Q. why do they have sharp claws?

A. if a predator tries to get them it helps them grip the trees so they can get there faster.

Q. what do they eat?

A. they are herbivores and thy eat about 2.5 pounds of eucalyptus leaves from the eucalyptus tree.. the amount of food they eat a day is tremendous for there size.

Q. where do they live

A. they live in Victoria, Australia in Eucalyptus trees

Q. is that all they eat?

A. they do drink water but not much because the eucalyptus leaves give them lots of moisture

Q. are they endangered?

A. they are on the endangered list. before the settlers came to Australia there was around 10 million koalas but they were hunted for there fur. From before the settlers and today there is a huge decline today. Also a disease called Chlamydiosis which is when the Koala’s cant have babies. About 50% of Koala’s (wild) have Chlamydiosis

Q. it that the only tree they stay on?

A. there is about 600 types of eucalyptus. but they only thrive for 10-15 of them

Quoll?

The Quoll is a Marsupial animal and a example of biogeography with the Sugar glider. here are some questions people asked.

Q. what is the name of a baby Quoll

A. they are called pups and the mother has about 4 to 6 pups at once. newborns are blind, hairless and weigh less than 1 gram. After 7 weeks the babies are to big for there mothers pouch so they live in a den and suck there mothers milk.

Q.how big is a newborn quoll?

A. it is about the size of a grain of rice and then it goes into its mothers pouch for about 21 days.

Q. the scientific name is the Dayurus, what does it mean?

A. its weird but it means hairy tail because they have hairy tails.

Q. what is a quoll?

A. A quoll is a animal that was discovered in 1770 buy a man named Captian Cook in northern Autralia. The original name for the quoll is the native cat because it looks like a cat.

Q. How many spiecies of Quoll’s are there?

A. There is 4 spiecies of quolls. There is the Northern Quoll, the spotted quoll, the eastern quoll and the western Quoll. The northern Quoll and the Spotted Quoll are typically smaller.

Q. What it there life span?

A. The quolls life span is naturally short. The Northern Quoll and the Spotted Quoll’s life span is about 2 years and the eastern and western quoll’s life span is about 5 years.

Q. There life span is so short when are they fully grown?

A. The average Quoll is fully grown by the age of 1 and they have there baby’s in winter because there is less pretadors then. It becomes a cycle if each quoll is born in winter because the next year they would be one and that’s the time for them to mate.

Q. Are they extinct?

A. No they are not but they are endangered. The amount of Quolls there were in 1770 has dropped by half today due to habitat loss and changes in Australia such as pollution.

Q. What does it look like?

A. it is like a rat-cat animal with white spots. They are nocturnal and they are lively and they are carnivorous.

Biogeography?

Biogeography is a kind of like the opposite of Convergent evolution because Biogeography is when one species is separated and forced to live in a new habitat with features they have to adapt to until it has adapted so much it is a new creature.There is a ton of examples of biogeography when Pangea existed. There is tons of examples of Biogeography. There will be post coming soon!

Wombats!

The Wombat and the Ground Hog another example of Biogeography when Pangea existed. The ground hog and the Wombat share the same bone structure as you can see in the pictures posted below. They look very similar but the people who mix them up are not aware that the ground hog lives in Canada and northern United states. The Wombat is a Marsupial and if you don’t know what a marsupial please check the first post. It weight about 75 pounds and the life span is 10-12 years but Patrick the oldest Wombat (pictures below) is 29 and counting. They are herbivores and eat almost anything around them like leaves and branches. The ground hog lives in Canada and some of the northern parts of the U.S. they also are herbivores so they eat only plants. The average wombat is 100 centimeters. they are pregnant for 20 to 21 days and then the baby goes into there mothers pouch for 3 weeks or until it is to big.The hairy nosed wombat it almost extinct. There is about 35 hairy nosed wombats in the world making them none of the most endangered animals in the world. There is a day called Hairy- Nosed day to donate money to keep them from becoming extinct but people predict that they will be extinct by the time. The are more endangered that panda’s   Here are some pictures of wombats!

groung hog: 

Wombat:

Patrick the Oldest wombat in the world age 29

Patrick’s 29th birthday!!!!

A day to raise money for the most endangered wombat