Few human adults gallop; the equine gait tends to be the preserve of little kids mimicking horses or exercise classes. But for camels, lions, and giraffes, galloping is a key fixture of their repertoire as they shift up through the gears.
However, Eric McElroy, from the College of Charleston, USA, explains that galloping is just one form of movement from a selection of maneuvers known as ‘asymmetric gaits’ – where the timing of foot falls is unevenly spread; including bounds performed by rabbits, crutching – when amphibious fish drag themselves by their fins across land – and punting, when fish push themselves along the sea- or riverbed with their pelvic fins.
Scientists had suggested that the ability to bound and gallop only emerged after mammals first appeared on the planet 210 million years ago. However, it turns out that crocodiles can also gallop at their highest speeds and turtles bound; which made McElroy and Michael Granatosky, from the New York Institute of Technology, USA, wonder whether animals may have evolved the ability to coordinate their limbs independently much earlier than previously thought. They publish their discovery that animals probably evolved the ability to crutch, bound, and possibly even gallop, 472 million years ago, long before life emerged onto land, in Journal of Experimental Biology.
“It took months to work out all the kinks in the analysis,” says McElroy, discovering that it is most likely that the earliest ancestors of almost all modern animals, including fish, 472 million years ago were capable of moving with some kind of proto-asymmetric gait. Whether they were punting, crunching, or bounding along the seabed isn’t known, but the animals were capable of asymmetrically coordinating their limbs to propel themselves. And the duo was surprised to discover that even though our earliest antecedent might have been capable of this alternate form of propulsion, some creatures – such as lizards, salamanders, frogs, and even elephants – have lost the ability to bound and gallop, even though they have ancestors in their family tree that were capable of coordinating asymmetric movements.
So, the ability to bound and gallop isn’t just the preserve of mammals. Almost all animals that are alive today have ancestors that were capable of moving asymmetrically, even though some lost the ability to move asymmetrically somewhere along the line; either because they lost the nerves necessary for coordinating these maneuvers or because they became too large or too slow to become airborne. Either way, mammals are not the sole select group with the ability to coordinate asymmetric movements and it is possible that we inherited the ability from some ancient fishy ancestor that propelled itself along the seabed on its fins long before any species set foot or fin on dry land.
I started this blog back in 2014. The title (My Cousin the Carp) was conceived as a parody of evolution.
Basically, the idea of evolution is that we're all related to fish, particularly bottom-feeders like the carp. But the theory of kind-to-kind evolution is bullshit. To come out and say: "Horses learned how to gallop 472 million years while they were sharks.," is as dumb as it sounds.
Anyone can come up with preposterous "theories" then present them as Science! How is anyone going to prove otherwise? Are you going to time-travel back 472 million years? Are you going to use DNA testing, or some other scientific model? Are you going to ask God? How exactly are you going to prove that horses didn't learn how to gallop 472 million years ago with they were fish, even though you know it's bullshit?
You're not. They know that just as well as you do.
But, you can play along. And make up your own theories. I mean, why not? That's what they do. It'll be fun. Come up with some crazy theory (maybe it's something you even think might be plausible) and then every time you read some crazy theory that you know isn't true, don't refute it, just reply, "that's amazing, but did you know......"
Here, let me demonstrate:
Approximately 999 gazillion years ago, before the earth had been hit by stars that eventually formed the oceans, it was a 10D (decagonian) sphere with a glass-like texture that was only 3 miles thick at its widest point. It was occupied by invisible balls of energy that communicated with each other via electromagnetic pulses which ultimately created the ozone layer that enabled the phenomenon of weather to occur.
The next time you read some Science! that you know is bullshit, just copy/paste the above. You should even cite this article as your source. If it gets out there enough, you'll see how Science! works.
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