Re: BADD BCF

["Nicholas R. Longrich" <longrich@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>]

On Wed, 6 Dec 1995, Jeffrey Martz wrote:
>        Is Cope's Rule the one that says big animals generally eveolve 
> from small ones, not the other way around?  I beleive that one of the 
> exceptions to this rule has to do with dwarfism in animals that become 
> genetically isolated on islands.  A nice example is the kiwi, a tiny 
> ratite that is supposed to have evolved from a larger ancestor, as 
> suggested by its humungous egg.
        The idea that kiwis are descended from Moas or shared a close 
common ancestor with them was recently disproven. There was a 
Scientific American article that put them closer to somebody like the 
emus or rheas, I forget which. But the point about islands is well taken- 
it happened a couple times with the mammoths, once with elephants in the 
Mediterranean (elephas falconeri, I think) I think the Shetland ponies, 
etc. 

        -Nick L.