AEPYORNIS\Colacanth


Aepyornis is a fossil bird known as a ratite.  Ratites are flightless
birds that are fast runners.  Living examples of ratites are the
ostrich, emu, kiwi, rhea, and cassowary.  Examples of these modern
flightless birds are found as far back as the Pleistocene epoch, the
same geological 'age' as aepyornis.  This makes aepyornis a
contemporary of the modern ratites, although obviously an extinct one!

Most of the aepyornis' were rather large and massive with small skulls.
They are sometimes referred to as 'elephant birds,' with one species,
Aepyornis titan, standing over 10 feet high.  Because man lived during
the Pleistocene epoch, it is believed that legends of the past, such as
that of the Rukh, or Roc, of Sinbad the Sailor and Marco Polo had their
origin in the Aepyornis.

The origin of flightless birds such as the ratites is still a mystery.
It's believed that flightless birds evolved from birds _with_ the
ability to fly.  Sounds more like a case for devolution than
evolution...  Now if evolutionists want to talk about examples of
transitional forms among birds, they'd be better off choosing
Archaeopteryx.  We've got plenty to say about Archaeopteryx (including
files online) and it's used more often by evolutionists than any other
fossil.

The coelacanth is sometimes used as an example of a transitional form
from the fishes to the amphibians.  Evolutionists believe that some of
the fins evolved into the foot of the amphibian.  But, as the
creationist Henry Morris points out: "...no fossil of a 'fishibian,'
with fins partly converted into feet (or any other transitional
characters) has ever been found."

Allow me to quote further from Henry Morris:

"The chief candidate for such a transitional form was long supposed to
have been the coelacanth, a crossopterygian fish, which was supposed to
have certain limb-like characters on its fins indicating initial
advance toward amphibianhood.  Ultimately it was destined, so it was
believed, to become a primitive amphibian known as a labyrinthodont.

The coelacanth was believed to have finished this transition sometime
in the Mesozoic, since no fossils have been found subsequent to that
era."

What makes the coelacanth so unusual is that a live specimen of this
supposedly extinct (300 hundred million years ago) fish was found in
the Indian Ocean in the 1950's.  It seems that the coelacanth may never
have evoluted into anything.  It's still alive today!  In fact, people
have caught so many coelacanths, that there is concern that they may
become extinct...

There are also other, more practical problems for changing an fish
into an amphibian.  Besides fins changing into forelimbs, the skull had
to change from two parts to a single, solid piece.  The hib bones had
to enlarge and become attached to the backbone.  The air bladder of the
fish had to be transformed into the lungs of the amphibian.  You have
to change it's diet as well as metabolism.  (The bird to reptile
transition has even _more_ practical problems.)

Walt...