34 Comments
User's avatar
Bourgeois Nerd's avatar

And what they do ain't pretty!

Zippy W. Pinhead's avatar

I have a special purpose, does that count?

bobbert's avatar

From the still shot in the article, there appeared to be an absence of pool.

But my acquaintance with octopi is pretty well confined to tako.

bobbert's avatar

Hey it's just a shallow lake. There's ice underneath it (so far).

π”…π”’π”’π”©π”·π”’π”Ÿπ”²π”Ÿπ”Ÿπ”ž's avatar

Timely item -- I'm in Key Largo, diving and snorkeling the coral reefs. Everything out there is eating everything else, so it's not clear how much of a problem the lionfish is in reality - but the lack of natural predators certainly has naturalists worried.

bobbert's avatar

Fuck, we're small.

Zippy W. Pinhead's avatar

if they let her move to Epcot she really could see Russia from her porch

Zippy W. Pinhead's avatar

too much rain, she'd never survive

SullivanSt's avatar

My appendix has no brain of its own, and was not designed by a creator, so it has no "purpose". It may have a function... although if that function is as a reservoir of symbiotic bacteria, that's not news to me, that suggestion has been bouncing around for years.

In an omnivorous species such as <em>homo sapiens</em>, is there any evidence that the small advantage having an appendix offers in certain scenarios enough to overcome the significant disadvantage that having an infected appendix causes?

Thus concludes my little rant on the sore subject of the use of anthropomorphic terms like "purpose" in the process of evolution.

Zippy W. Pinhead's avatar

Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!

oh wait, on second thought...

Zippy W. Pinhead's avatar

now that it's gone flaccid they should rename it "Weinerflower"

Zippy W. Pinhead's avatar

actually those are the only semi coherent ones

Lot_49's avatar

Hawaii (all of the islands) is the most amazing ecological reserve/battleground/playground for rare species probably anywhere, because of its remoteness from other lands. Some species of snails live only in a single tree.

People came there for the first time sometime between 700-1100 AD. They were, and brought with them, the first mammals ever on the islands. (There still aren't any snakes.) The native birds, unaccustomed to mammalian ferocity, nested on the ground.