2 words

breeding population



how can all of these species survive if they don't reporoduce ? if they reproduce, what type of social structure do they have ? if they reproduce, what types of numbers are up to ? 30 ? 50 ?

why are they never seen in groups or pairs ?

what species are you speaking of?

sorry, good question, nessie, big foot, lake monsters, etc

Bigfoots have been reportedly seen in pairs AND in groups.

Ive seen such writtings on this site in other threads.......

Maybe they have 0 population growth and just maintain their current population

lets take bigfoot as an example. if they are basically mammals, and basically primate, they are of this world. Most mammals have a direct relationship between the complexity of the lifestyle and child rearing. it takes about 22 years to raise a human, and a few months to raise a rabbit. I would expect bigfoot falls into a category where the male offspring are part of the group until they are about 14-15, when they become ready to lead there own group. females are more valuable than males, and remain with the group. they are likely to have an extended family structure, about 15 members.
I can't see mama bigfoot giving birth, then going to hide in the woods. she would raise the offspring.

if that's the case, there would surley be need of shelter, resources, communication, things that would make them strong, but also easliy found. the mountain gorilla was only discovered about 120 years ago (I think) but I just can't see groups of 15 BF's remaining undetected, and I can't see them surviving on their own. kind of a catch-22, imo. I was a big believer in BF, LNM, etc until I began looking at it like they were any other animal I migh study.

Good question. That's what make's it hard to beleive they are real. I know for a fact Loch Ness does'nt exist...

Hehe

It would be nice if its real but if its not oh well.

Originally posted by Minime
Good question. That's what make's it hard to beleive they are real. I know for a fact Loch Ness does'nt exist...

So you're the guy who drained the lake!

But seriously, you do not know for a fact that the Loch Ness (or it's monster) don't exist.

For one, Loch Ness, the lake, does exist.

Assuming you meant the legendary creature that lives in the Loch, you don't know that for a fact either. It is impossible to know for a fact that something doesn't exist. You can not prove/know a negetive.

If the lake was drained, and you inspected every inch of it, you still couldn't have inspect every inch at the same time, and this leaves the option that it is there just moving around.

What you can know is that humans come up with lots of legends of creatures including various sea/lake monsters. You can know that you have never seen it and that sonar scans have never turned up deffinite proof. You can know that there is no solid evidence for it. These are the reasons I do not believe in the loch ness monster...they are also the reasons i do not believe in the loch ness giant lazer shooting ballarina. However we can never know they don't exist for a fact until we know for a fact that the lake is something cotrary to these.

how about two other words.............. asexual reproduction

Ps for the guy that said he knew for a fact the loch ness monster didnt exist i would love to see his basis for his beleifs. Personally i went there allmost 20 years ago and saw the loch , at first seeing how turbulent the water was i could see how people beleived to be seeing things in the lake. However i also stumbled acoross a large pool of water on one of the side roads near the loch , in the bottom of the pool you could see a cavern leading deep under the ground. From my personal experience if there is one cavern around then there are dozens , and places like this with direct accsess to the sea could hide just about any animal.

minniescar, do you really believe an animal as large as nessie or BF utilizes asexual production ? The duplicate themselves ? We're not talking barnacles or ameobas here.

That would result in a gene pool extremely vulnerable to disease and the point I was hoping to make is there simply must be many more than 1 of these creatures. My thoery is based on these animals being of this world and having a lifespan and biological patterns consistent with other species, IE great apes or plesiasaurs. (sp?)

There are many hiding spots, but I believe you would need 20-30 animals at a minumum, and the amount of food they would need and waste they would produce would lead to more evidence. Where are the nessy bones of dead carcasses ? Wouldn't they was ashore now and then ? Heck, even giant squids have washed ashore.

.

well maybe some dont reproduce, maybe some live for 1000s of years, we wont know until we capture one but i swear if anyone captures loch ness monster, i will personaly put my sword through there head!!!!

Given my experience in the animal trade asexual reproduction would not surprise me to any great extent. There are several variations of reproduction whose not to say that this might not be possible , we have seen it in lower organisms whay not larger. Your theory of the gene pool being to small is still looking at normal sexual reproduction. See in normal sexual production two pairs of chromosomes make up the new set each has different traits, some ressesive and some dominant. If you continue to recombine these TWO sets of chromosomes then you multiply the poor traits until they come to the surface. However with asexual reproduction each time an offspring is created an exact clone is created because only one set of chromosomes and dna are present.


One such asexual organism is the whiptail lizard in the U.S. Southwest, Mexico, and South America, which consists only of females. Each offspring is an exact duplicate of its mother. Other asexual animals do exist however i cant think of them off the top of my head. There are even some frogs ( cant remember what type ) that will actually change sexs if the other one is not present , litterally they go from male to female and vise versa.

Ive also seen animals retain sperm for later production, several species of reptiles store sperm in case of something happening to their original offspring. If something happens then the female just releases the stored sperm and reimpregnates herself. Ive heard of this in some mammals however i have not personally witnessed it. Granted thats not asexual reproduction but it does show that in order to reproduce a male and female need not be together at the time of conception.

Additionally you have to examine the posibility of odd breeding habits along with extremely long lifespans. Most parrots and tortises live well over 100 years and some only reproduce once. Some animals such as these dont reach sexual maturity until 20 years plus of age and it wouldnt surprise me if some animals dont reach sexual maturity until 40 plus years of age. So you end up with a creature that has to wait at least 40 years from birth to breed and lives a 100 years or so, in the end there wouldnt be alot of breeding going on. Nothing would surprise me.

Another possibility is that the creatures dont procreate in thier current form that they under go a metamorpheses at some point in thier lives. Take tadpoles for example or butterflies, they look nothing like thier older selves. They undergo a change in which thier body structure changes and turns them into entirely differnt creatures. To me it would not seem odd that some type of sea dwelling creature might under go the same style transformation and who knows it could lie dormant for years like the celocanth ( mispelled ) or other creatures that can lay in a dormant state for 50+++++ years at a time only to reimerge when the weather conditions and food sources are suitable. With animals you never know , new species are discovered all the time and oddities pop up in each one so nothing is impossible. Im not saying the loch ness monster is real im just not dismissing the possibility that some unidentified creature might exist in the area, also i wont dismiss the possibility that the really turbulent water in the loch gave birth to these sightings in the form of a wave......

oh and before you crack on me there are several species of whiptail lizards, ill have to look tonight to see if i can find the species i was refferenceing.

Originally posted by Quest

Originally posted by Minime
Good question. That's what make's it hard to beleive they are real. I know for a fact Loch Ness does'nt exist...

So you're the guy who drained the lake!

But seriously, you do not know for a fact that the Loch Ness (or it's monster) don't exist.

For one, Loch Ness, the lake, does exist.

Assuming you meant the legendary creature that lives in the Loch, you don't know that for a fact either. It is impossible to know for a fact that something doesn't exist. You can not prove/know a negetive.

If the lake was drained, and you inspected every inch of it, you still couldn't have inspect every inch at the same time, and this leaves the option that it is there just moving around.

What you can know is that humans come up with lots of legends of creatures including various sea/lake monsters. You can know that you have never seen it and that sonar scans have never turned up deffinite proof. You can know that there is no solid evidence for it. These are the reasons I do not believe in the loch ness monster...they are also the reasons i do not believe in the loch ness giant lazer shooting ballarina. However we can never know they don't exist for a fact until we know for a fact that the lake is something cotrary to these.

Yes, Im that guy! j/k

Anyway, there was a program on BBC about Nessie, they sent a boat on the loch with a strong radar. It did'nt pick up anything. I beleive this program was on last year.

actually that boat your talking about did pick up something if i remember correctly but they dismissed it. However given the area is riddled with caverns a creature could concievably go in and out of the loch to the sea and not be detected. Or it could be inside the caverns during the time of the radar expedition. Again im not saying there is a monster in the loch im just saying its very possible an unidentified creature could live within the loch.

Originally posted by Minime

Originally posted by Quest

Originally posted by Minime
Good question. That's what make's it hard to beleive they are real. I know for a fact Loch Ness does'nt exist...

So you're the guy who drained the lake!

But seriously, you do not know for a fact that the Loch Ness (or it's monster) don't exist.

For one, Loch Ness, the lake, does exist.


I saw that program too. They did extensive research on it. But I do think if we were to find a creature it would be in the deep blue sea. If a dinosuar or creature exists it will be found there!!!!

[edit on 25-8-2004 by DragonFly5]

I understand your point, please forgive me if I came across as arrogant or dismissive. The celocanth (sp) and other examples prove accepted mainstream theories are often proven wrong.
I was hoping to put forth a question that challenges the belief that there are one or just a few of these beings existing, it just doesn't make sense to me. My argument assumes these creatures are of this earth, and must be bound by physics and biological laws. They reproduce, feed, excrete waste, die, etc.

True all creatures are bound by the laws of nature however some of them bend the laws. Changing sex in order to insure the species continuis to exist as well as the few asexual animals both prove that a species will do everything it can in order to survive. Things like the ceolocanth and others like it that can stay in a dormant state for years until the conditions are just perfect for it are simply amazing.

Its funny just when you think you have nature figured out it throws in an oddball that defies all the rules.