bat evolution

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Not long along, in a thread concerning intelligent design & creationism, it was suggested that there was no evidence that bats had evolved. The BBC has an interesting article on a new bat fossil dating to 52 million years ago.
The Link

The species is definitely a bat but is more primitive in many features including the strucure of the ear. Neat critter.

The problem with filling one gap in the fossil reacord is that this means we now have two gaps to explain (written with tongue firmly in cheek).

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That is a beautiful fossil.

How pathetic is this? I saw the picture of the specimen. Without reading what state or formation it was from, I knew it was from the Green River Formation because of the preservation. I may just be a nerd.
 
Eastwood22,

After

Theropods,
There are worse things than being a 'science nerd'. On rare occasions I get a little jealous of paleontologists. Y'all work with such neat stuff. DNA is neat too but it isn't very impressive in the recovery vial.

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Every fossil is a transitional fossil because organisms are always evolving. We can attribute parts of our own bodies like the tail bone to our tail-wagging ancestors.

Praise of Folly, you're right in that "develop" implies an end-goal, which evolution does not have. But among scientists who don't have to worry about their words being twisted by Creationists, it's easier to say "develop."
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House, I think I understand your post, but I just wanted to be sure that everyone knows that I'm not a Creationist or ID guy.

Oh, it just seems that it might be better to use a term such as "mutate."

Anyway, I'm just making noise about semantics.

It might have been a worthless post.
 
What are bats closest cousins on earth right now? The features of a bat (aside from the wings, fo course) can very from a pug nosed look (common bat) all the way to a very canine look (flying fox... awesome animal, btw).

Are bats more related to canines or something else entirely?
 
It's when bats develop laser-beam eyes to go with their echolocatio that I'll begin to worry.

The Congress Avenue bridge won't seem so cool then, I'll tell you that.
 
Bats closest living relatives are up in the air. No pun intended.

They may be colugos or flying lemurs. The sister group to that is tree shews and primates.

This is looking like the likely answer, but it is an active area of research.
 
The opening chapter to Richard Dawkin's The Blind Watchmaker has a fascinating description of bats' echolocation abilities, comparing their structure to the research into radar during World War II and all the engineering problems that arose. Dawkin's point was to show how magnificent living organisms are and how they can seem designed to someone ignorant (an he uses this in a non-belligerent way) of biolog and zoology.

Praise of Folly, I wasn't thinking you were an ID/Creationist, I was just commenting for others on how scientists' words can get misinterpreted.
 
If they are designed, there are lots of errors in the design. See vestigial organs etc. There are also a lot of transitional fossils out there that must be either God or the devil playing a joke.
 
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