When Dolphins use seeds.

3 posts ยท May 4 2003 to May 5 2003

From: Robin Fitton <contactrobin@h...>

Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 00:37:51 +0100

Subject: When Dolphins use seeds.

This reminds me of a Futurama episode. A small fish leaps out of a tank into a
walking suit. It had two small metal legs and it's anybody's guess how it
balanced!

Here's a wild idea.   If I remember correctly, Philip Pullman's recent
trilogy "His dark Materials" had a a race of land dwelling animals that had a
symbiotic relationship with trees. The seeds that dropped from the trees were
very large round nuts with a hole in the middle. The animals used these nuts
as wheels by hooking them into their legs. They then made use of unusual
volcanic formations (like roads).

Perhaps a beach palm could drop similar large seeds into the sea, which the
dolphins initially played with. Eventually the dolphins might evolve to use
the seeds as wheels? Seaweed being used as Camo on their midnight land raids?

What sort of Camo would a dolphin use?

R
http://www.robinf.com/gallery

From: Beth Fulton <beth.fulton@m...>

Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 17:17:41 +1000

Subject: RE: When Dolphins use seeds.

G'day,

> Perhaps a beach palm could drop similar large seeds into the

More likely they'd figure out how to utilise them for wheels rather than
evolve a symbiotic relationship, but the general idea has potential.

> Seaweed being used as Camo on their

Not so weird dolphins already grab objects from their environment to break up
their outline when "trying to be something else" while playing or hunting in
shallow or complex environments.

> What sort of Camo would a dolphin use?

I take it you mean out of the water as many dolphins already have colouring
which = cam in water. If they develop any decent tech level they'd be right
on to radar cam/stealth. Visually they'd be cued on to shapes and dull
light conditions. Colour wise they're likely to mess stuff up as they
definitely
miss on red and if some work out of Germany holds for all seals/whales
then they miss blue as well as they only have green cones. So the colours
might not fool humans... be interesting to see how they go with the KV (which
many people have proposed have a different set of colour vision to humans).

Cheers

From: Alan and Carmel Brain <aebrain@w...>

Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 18:34:26 +1000

Subject: Re: When Dolphins use seeds.

From: <Beth.Fulton@csiro.au>

> > What sort of Camo would a dolphin use?