Just kidding about the wildflowers. Although my camera was easily distracted my focus was on carnivora.
God tossed a meteor at the dinosaurs about 64 million years ago clearing the way for the mammals. The carnivora emerged in the next 10 million years or so and soon diverged into two main groups, the feliformia and the caniformia. A few more mutations later and we had the house cat and a state on the west coast of America.
Actually we can be a bit more precise than that. A recurring question on the expedition was which group belongs where. I have appended a diagram showing the broad outline of relationships to the bottom of this post. Hopefully whoever holds the copyright won’t notice.
Meanwhile, dogs.
Lycaon pictus from the Greek meaning Wolf-like and Latin painted. Some conservation minded groups prefer the name Painted Dog to the traditional Wild Dog. Gives it a better spin. The local people often nominate it as their favorite animal. It’s social, shares food, hunts cooperatively and very successfully relying on stamina and persistence rather than speed and power. So a lot of characteristics that we admire in people.
Now, as promised, an overview of the carnivora.
Relationship of carnivores based on DNA hybridization data (Wayne et al. 1989). Family and suborder groupings are indicated. Time scale in millions of year before present (MYBP) is based on comparisons of DNA sequence divergence to first appearance times in the fossil record.
bobmcgee 