Okay, this article is not about the thing that makes Long John Silver's lobster bites, but it is about one freakish crustration. A hairy lobster? Werid...
March 9, 2006
Not a langostino...
Okay, this article is not about the thing that makes Long John Silver's lobster bites, but it is about one freakish crustration. A hairy lobster? Werid...
So freakish in fact, that it warranted a whole new family before it could be correctly classified...not just a new species, but a new genus and family. That's pretty amazing...and cool. Even more cool? When you find out about the new discovery because one of your students sends you the link....
ReplyDeleteWho told you about it first?
ReplyDeleteAnd where does family come in the taxonomy?
When was the last new family added?
Your potty-mouthed 10th bell TA sent it my way Wednesday evening via email...The classification hierarchy goes like this:
ReplyDeleteKingdom-Phylum-Class-Order-Family-Genus-species.
I always teach the kids that you just think, "King Phillip Came Over for Grape Soda" and then you won't forget the order...but there are a bunch of other mnemonic devices out there for the same thing...
The last time I read about a new genus being established for classification purposes...and I'm not an expert...was in 2001 when Maeve Leakey-grand daughter to the famed Louis-found a skull in a lake basin in Kenya that didn't fit into the normal Homo or Australiopithicus-sp? genus so she invented a new one called Kenyanthropus...but that wasn't even a new family...so this is kind of a big deal...
Do you think the Leakey kids even get the choice of what they're going to do when they grow up?
ReplyDeleteI know that my dad is a teacher and all, but he did sort of try to steer me away from being one because he knew there were some tough parts to the job.
Do you think that each generation of Leakeys does the same sort of thing?
C'mon, kid, this job's tough on your skin...you're always sunburned...you never get the dirt out from under your fingernails...
considering the fact the Leakeys all grow up in Kenya on the dig sites with their families, I'm thinking career day is a fairly limited kind of event...you know, when you're chosing between impoverished, starving farmer and famous anthropologist...I'm thinking I know which both I'd visit in the junior high gymnasium...
ReplyDeleteb/c I'm sure it's precisely the same in Kenya as it is in the US...