Ducks With Teeth?( Warning Dead Birds Shown)

[worthy 55]

I have seen some ducks that appear to have what look like teeth could this be a through back from their reptile days? This only happens now and then and I have seen this in different species of ducks. Any Ideas?

[AgrilusHunter]

Nope. Their bills can sometimes have a serrated edge along the inside but these are not true teeth. Mergansers (Saw-bills) are probably the best known example but I think a lot of water birds have this adaptation. Here is a nice picture of a merganser skull and bill from a Google image search.

http://bqekeeper.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/bill2.jpg

[Auspex]

Those are called "lamellae", and are common to most geese and ducks. There is no structural relationship between them and ancestral teeth.

[hokiehunter]

Not sure about the "teeth" in your picture but I did watch a Discovery program a few months ago where a team of paleontologists were working with other scientists at the University of Wisconsin to "turn on" the tooth and tail genes in chickens. They were actually having some real success. The theory being that chickens (birds) can devolve to dinosaurs if certain genes are "turned on" at the right time for the proper length of time. They were injecting the appropriate gene sequence/chemical into an egg embryo and the result was the embryo would start to develop teeth and tails. Normal chickens have something like 5 vertebrae but by turning the tail gene back on they were able to expand that number and grow the tail again. Same story with teeth. Kind of neat stuff though I'm not sure I would want to see or eat the end product of the research.

[Auspex]

The topic motif calls for mo' teef:

These are from the last of the toothed birds.

[AgrilusHunter]

The theory being that chickens (birds) can devolve to dinosaurs ...

This is incorrect. Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) compares the development of different organisms to help determine their evolutionary relationships. Manipulation of gene activation/timing in these lab animals is part of this process and allows researchers to better understand how variations in an organisms proteome (the genes that are active at any given time) can have a greater impact than the genome itself. This research does not postulate that current organisms are more evolved than extinct organisms, or that by manipulating the gene activation of a chicken you could create a dinosaur.

Edited April 23, 2012 by AgrilusHunter

[worthy 55]

Thanks guys , I some times look at these ducks and see small dinosaurs lurking inside. B)

Edited April 23, 2012 by worthy 55

[hokiehunter]

This is incorrect. Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) compares the development of different organisms to help determine their evolutionary relationships. Manipulation of gene activation/timing in these lab animals is part of this process and allows researchers to better understand how variations in an organisms proteome (the genes that are active at any given time) can have a greater impact than the genome itself. This research does not postulate that current organisms are more evolved than extinct organisms, or that by manipulating the gene activation of a chicken you could create a dinosaur.

It was a while ago when I watched this but here is a piece on the same subject.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jack_horner_building_a_dinosaur_from_a_chicken.html

[hokiehunter]

A better link.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/jun/14/1

[AgrilusHunter]

I've seen Dr. Horner's TED talk on this before - I dislike it for many reasons. Foremost is of these reasons is that the idea of reverse engineering a dinosaur from a chicken is a gross misinterpretation of the actual science. Evo-devo studies the evolutionary relationships of organisms. Through complex and truly brilliant experiments researchers are beginning to unravel the directions for 'building' an organism, and how these directions have evolved to create the life we see around us. They are often interested in the genes and gene combinations that code for ancestral traits, however, this is not a search for a way to rebuild dinosaurs. Instead, evo-devo is more a search to understand how/why complex lineages evolve from one state into another.

The main problem with the idea of using evo-devo to reconstruct dinosaurs is simply that teeth, tails, and scales a dinosaur does not make. Even if years in the future some person succeeds in creating a chicken with teeth, a tail, scaly skin, etc., that looks just like a dinosaur it could never be one. A dinosaur, a raptor for example, was a complex animal that relied on a combination of genetics, environment, and learned behaviors to define its uniqueness. From a chicken you can reverse engineer none of the former. Dinosaurs rose, ruled, and then faded away. I too would love to see one in the flesh, but sadly they are gone forever.

TED talks are fun, sometimes, but a better use of the seventeen minutes it takes to watch this video would be reading some of Gould's 'Wonderful Life.' This book is a masterpiece of scientific writing that will make you truly appreciate just how improbable it is that ducks with lamellae in their bills even exist in the first place.

[AgrilusHunter]

The topic motif calls for mo' teef:

These are from the last of the toothed birds.

Also, these are really cool! Thanks for posting.

[ashcraft]

I think Dr. Horner follows the "ontogeny follows phylogeny" belief, long outdated, except in tyrannosaurs being scavengers and triceratops being an intermediate growth form.

Brent Ashcraft

[worthy 55]

Here is another duck with teeth. B)

This pic was taken by someone else.

Edited April 24, 2012 by worthy 55

[DeloiVarden]

Man, I thought I only had to be concerned about gators, but that birds mouth looks like it could draw blood worthy 55!