Marsupial evolution

wolf vs. dog, lateral (both placentals)

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wolf vs. thylacine, lateral (placental vs. marsupial)

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wolf vs. dog, anterior (both placentals)

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wolf vs. thylacine, anterior (placental vs. marsupial)

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wolf vs. dog vs. thylacine, ventral (two placentals vs. one marsupial)

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wolf vs. dog vs. thylacine, lower jaw (two placentals vs. one marsupial

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kangaroo vs. thylacine, lateral. (both marsupials)

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possum vs. thylacine, lateral. (both marsupials)

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kangaroo, possum, thylacine, anterior. (three marsupials)

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kangaroo, possum, thylacine, ventral (three marsupials)

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kangaroo, possum, thylacine, lower jaw (three marsupials)yes. marsupials ARE more similar to each other than to their similar-looking placental counterpart. it might not be obvious from tiny pictures of the living animal, but the internal anatomy is a dead give-away.Edited by arachnophilia, : found jpgs. slides used by kevin padian during the kitzmiller v. dover trial, courtesy of the national center for science education. (used without permission, under fair use, sorry about the bandwidth)Edited by arachnophilia, : wrong picture

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Huh? marsupials and placentals are certainly related.

first off, nice pictures.
now for the bad news and questions:the first picture mentions dogs and NA wolfs having 2 molars. In the picture comparing NA wolfs, dogs, and Taz Wolf (3 jaws, on side).
(edit in post: my bad. the second picture is of the lower jaws. The first only counts upper jaw)now for the actual problem. last picture is supposed to have the lower jaw of the kangaroo, possum, and thylacine. Instead, it has the NA wolf and dog lateral view.

Yes, your point shows that the more detailed analysis used by taxonomists is much superior to the more superficial comparisons between some marsupials and placentals occupying a similar niche.Which really doesn't get creationists anywhere. The evidence that they wish to reject is untouched by your point.

I stand corrected.

thank you, i typoed on the filename in the img tag. it has been fixed.

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Perhaps you should learn what morphology is.It is not the study of superficial resemblances.Nor is genetics.

Darwinists here seem to be pretty sure that they can tell apart skulls of marsupial and placental wolfs: I dare say that if you don't know dental formulas by heart you will
not tell them apart let say after one year seeing them again lateral. I can support my view by Richard Dawkins observation:

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Zoology students at Oxford had to identify 100 zoological specimens as part of the final exam. Word soon got around that, if ever a 'dog' skull was given, it was safe to identify it as Thylacinus on the grounds that anything as obvious as a dog skull had to be a catch. Then one year the examiners, to their credit, double bluffed and put in a real dog skull. The easiest way to tell the difference is by the two prominent holes in the palate bone, which are characteristic of marsupials generally.

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Yet folks here are better experts than Oxford students of Zoology.The skull of thylacinus is btw. more similar to fox than to wolf:
The Tasmanian tiger, Thylacinus cynocephalus, is more similar in skull shape to the red fox, Vulpes vulpes, than to the placental wolf, Canis lupus.
CSIRO PUBLISHING | Australian Journal of ZoologyWhat surprised me also is thylacinus stripes on it's back, the form of which is "remarkably similar" of Afrikan Zebra duiker.http://www.naturalworlds.org/...oducing/tasmanian_wolf_1.htmSuch stripe pattern is as striking as similarity of marsupial and placental wolfs skulls. One would say that the animal was compounded of many different patterns like platypus.Darwinists tend as usually to explain the striking similarity of stripe pattens between thylacinus and Zebra duiker "LIKELY due to similar types of habitat".Of course marsupial wolf is predator what is not the case of Zebra.
And marsupial wolfs hunted during night so I am not sure who enjoyed their strips. Problem is obviously much more complicated and going far beyond darwinian standard story explanations.

- Snip unrelated personal attack - Predator or prey: Same underlying purpose camouflage.How about Tigers strips and Zebra stripes or Leopard spots and Giraffes spots? And Zebras are hunted during night and low light conditions. The underlying molecular machinery and physics behind the making of spots and strips is the same in marsupial and placental mammals so I do not find it too surprising to find pattern convergence.

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Darwinists here seem to be pretty sure that they can tell apart skulls of marsupial and placental wolfs:

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And the pictures have been produced to SHOW the differences Our confidence is based on having seen the differences. It seems that you are simply assuming that the differences cannot be there.

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Yet folks here are better experts than Oxford students of Zoology.

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Aside from the fact that the students had to identify 100 skulls, in exam conditions and - according to the story - were already biased in favour of the thylacine, and may not have known how different the thylacine's teeth really were. They were not in the situation of being presented with two skulls and being able to tell the difference - which is what I referred to. My position is directly supported by the photographs above. That beats your anecdote.

And yet you were the one claiming that the thylacine skull was virtually indistinguishable from the wolf skull.Do you ever (a) stick to a point or (b) admit when you are wrong? This constant changing of the argument that you continually engage in is just another case of moving goalposts.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : .

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As best I can tell many of the folks here were students but they graduated. Some have even post-graduated multiple times and some have even managed to achieve wisdom beyond that which a formal education is meant to provide.Of course, the most intelligent posts IMO come from those who are forever both graduates and students. The real question is can you accept and describe the difference between and similarities to placental mammals that marsupials have. If you can't describe them, which is a reality, then you are neither a deserved graduate nor an accomplished student.Edited by anglagard, : clarity

Anyway explanation of Zebras stripes are probably another neodarwinian armchair ad-hoc story not supported by serious research yet (like in many cases of mimicry btw) - the research from 2002:

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Additionally or alternatively, although stripes apparently increase zebra visibility in daylight, it is at least plausible that they provide effective cryptic protection from predators in poor light, although critical testing has not been attempted. Other related evolutionary questions are raised and suggestions made for future research

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Just a moment...So I don't know how darwinists would explain stripes on marsupial wolfs. Consider the fact there is probably no need for marsupial wolfs in a wolfpack/kennel (if such wolfpack/kennel ever existed) to be indescernible from each other.
Consider the fact that stripes are predominantly on the backs of marsupial wolfs. I suppose such stripes on the back are not the main part the prey is aware of during its escape (I assume the marsupial wolf didn't creep near its prey by their ass with its head on the other side).------------------
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------------------Might be there is time for darwinists to use another unverifiable evasion - sexual selection?Like this one:

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The novel hypothesis developed by Simmons and Scheepers (1996) argues that the giraffe’s long neck arose from its use as a weapon during intrasexual combat.The sparring between two male giraffes is referred to as “necking”, a behavior used to establish dominance hierarchies in the male herds (Coe, 1967).

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Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.Edited by MartinV, : Giraffe neck added Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

Your original objection, if I understood it correctly, is how can a predator such as thylacinus have similar markings as a prey animal such as a banded duiker.For convenience from your prior post... I suggestion that prey and predator adopt similar markings as they both benefit from camouflage in the form of discontinuous color markings and that the underlying molecular mechanisms and physics is similar so it is not to hard understand the convergence. I provided a reference that talked about that further.However, I forgot to mention that markings can serve as camo in addition to species recognition and sexual preferences. That need to be considered.You ignore that issue and post a host of other objections such as, why are the stripes on the thylacinus on their back? If I spent time on that issue I would guess the question would just morph again. Edited by iceage, : No reason given.

Just curious why you are mentioning a kennel?However I noticed this picture over on the Thylacine wiki This image shows quite nicely the value of discontinuous color markings as camouflage, eventhough that was not the intent of the picture.Also noticed mentioned on the Wiki that the color markings were more prominent on young Thylacines and faded as they aged. This suggest that maybe the color markings provided advantage when the Thylacines where young and vulnerable (ie, at a stage when they themselves were prey).Again tho I would stress that the similar markings in animals between predator and prey or marsupial and placental mammals is due to the same underlying molecular mechanism.