Is evolution of mammals finished?

You are boldly comparing coloration of animals to in this case coloration on mushrooms,(I'm not saying that you literally are making comparisons, but your moving from one to the other, from mushrooms to butterflies to whatever, meaning your crossing over) mushrooms in this case, fungus in other words has no need for any kind of other animal to transport it, it grows, throws out its conidia and when they land on an edible spot, a new fungus grows as it eats up all the decaying material (or living material, depending on what the fungus eats in this case, and I know eating is a very bad word, but it simplifies things so nicely)You can argue that they all have different colors and darwinists dont have an answer. But it doesnt really matter in this case (and someone with more expertise in fungi might actually have the answer).. their reproductive system and their main functions are so completely different from plants and animals, that there really is no correlation. You're deluding yourself if you demand them to act the same way.On the point where you quoted me, I might have written it in a wrong way, but what I ment was very simple. Humans genetically altered many fruits and vegetables to have tasty colors.As for the decoration for fruits, I explained to you that the original color is appetising for other animals, they eat and poop out the seeds, its a great way to spread your seed so to speak.For animals its a great way to show the fitness of an animal, survival of the fittest, in this case chosing the best partner.. Vibrant colors on the male or female of an animal. In many species of animal this are signs of a very strong male or female.. Very logical in other words.

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Thats why they dare to explain complicated coloration on butterflies wings or changing colors of cephalophodes

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Cephalopod - WikipediaGo there to check on Cephalopod, place close attention on the "mostly color blind" and "camouflage" parts, they explain it better then I Can. What more is there to say ??And please, just read something about butteflies, like here:
Butterfly - WikipediaBefore you start complaining about it not being explained.

Biochemically active, certainly; it may even be fair to call it toxic--but millennia of shamans and thousands of contemporary consumers could tell you that it is not deadly when properly prepared. So why do chameleonic abilities appear so often in nature?

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Whoops...

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Wild carrot, aka Queen Anne's lace (from which the domestic carrot was bred), has a white root that is edible before it becomes too woody.

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A friend who was a botany major in college once made a carrot cake with the roots of Queen Anne's Lace for a course assignment that required that the students make something edible out of something growing wild in the area.It took her hours and hours to pull up enough Queen Anne's Lace for one cake.

I was a Boy Scout in an inner city troup.We earned money to attend summer BS camp by directing parking at the Indy 500 (mid 60s).My first direct experience with beer came from a drunken race fan saying, "O my God, a friggin' Boy Scout!" who then poured a bottle of beer on my head At summer camp, we learned lessons that later saved my life (drop and roll when you're on fire) and my little brother's life (Lifesaving Merit Badge--how to break a choke hold from a drowning swimmer).We were sent into the woods with a fishing line, knife, and a few other basics to demonstrate our knowledge of how to survive in the wilderness: what plants could be eaten, how to purify water, build a shelter, etc.I found my way back to the dining hall and liberated copious foodstuffs: wild carrots and dandelion greens are all very well, but peanut butter rocks.I didn't get caught, though I did later confess. I still got my survival badge: the proof was in the pudding (lemon).Mammals are sneaky. I don't think we're finished.

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We cannot infer from it that coloration of mushrooms has the same function as it have in chameleons.The topic should have its own thread but I would like to summarize:1) Mushrooms coloration has no cryptic/aposematic meaning either.

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Poisonous mushrooms do not tend to be more colorful or aggregated than edible mushrooms, but they are more likely to exhibit distinctive odors even when phylogenetic relationships are accounted for.

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University of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent2) Production of poison in mushrooms is also hardly explainable by darwinistic mantra of "survival advantage".I have never heard about wild animals poisoned by mushroom (as student of mycology claimed here some times ago):

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Wild animals eat fungi, yet mushroom poisonings in nature are unknown.

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http://www.springerlink.com/content/t772216861025u66Even if darwinists try to explain presence of poison in mushrooms
via classical darwinistic explanation I would like see following explaination

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The opossum Didelphis virginiana readily consumed the toxic mushroom Amanita muscaria, became ill, and then developed an aversion to the fungus.

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to Lethal webcaps where the first symptoms often occurs after 3 weeks!
I suppose that even if oppossum survive it will hardly remeber what kind of mushrooms ate it 3 weeks ago.Orellani - WikipediaSo the only explanation nowadays of coloration and poisonous quality of mushrooms that darwinists offer is some mysterious side effects. Strange, isn't it?

Why on earth would you just pick some random example and then require it be shoehorned into a description of something that happened with another very different mushroom.Amanita muscaria is generally not lethal and the mushroom has very distinctive colouration. The lethal webcap is much more toxic, indeed frequently lethal, and has no sort of bright colouration (I'm sure we could debate the different perceptions among fungivores here but I don't know that it would help).A mushroom whose poison kills those that ingest it is clearly not going to be showing similar survival strategies to one which induces unpleasant illness and has associated psychotropic effects. Look at the related Amanita phalloides which is highly toxic and again you will see a pretty plain colouration. If your poision is strong enough to kill something that eats you (or even just part of you), it really doesn't matter if they remember what you look like. Martin why say something and then put up a link which shows how radically you are spinning it. The Wiki article says 'symptoms usually don't appear until 2-3 days after ingestion' but can 'in some cases' take as long as 3 weeks. Can you see how simply saying 'often occurs after 3 weeks' is a complete twisting of this?TTFN,WK

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Omnivorous writes:

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So why do chameleonic abilities appear so often in nature?

MartinV writes:

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We cannot infer from it that coloration of mushrooms has the same function as it have in chameleons.

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Ah, let us pause to savor this moment.MartinV, you went squirreling after mushrooms to evade the telling points being made by others in the discussion of mammal evolution (the actual topic).So isn't it grand to see you now weasel about the applicability of chameleonic abilities to mushroom discussions? I don't know, maybe it's just me.Anyway, I mentioned chameleons to cut to the chase (and the camouflage that is sometimes involved). No one here has argued that prey v. predator relationships determine all color attributes of life. However, you have broadly denied any role by natural selection in this phenomenon.So chameleons are especially relevant: If color is never determined by natural selection, and has no impact on survival, why do chameleonic abilities exist? Note that these abilities do not just exist in chameleons. Perhaps you should shift the discussion to diatoms.Strange, isn't it?Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.Edited by Omnivorous, : typos redux

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What I am trying to explain here is that mushrooms coloration (and now even their toxicity) has nothing to do with darwinistic "survival strategies". According darwinism if something is poisonous it should tend to show it up using bright coloration. That's why the research I mentioned above claims in its abstract:

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One possibility is that poisons have evolved in some mushroom species to deter their consumption by would-be fungivores before spore dispersal. If this is so, then one might expect poisonous mushrooms to signal their unprofitability in some way.

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As you can see their expectations contradicts your own opinion: Yet they confirmed what I stated from the beginning:

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Poisonous mushrooms do not tend to be more colorful or aggregated than edible mushrooms, but they are more likely to exhibit distinctive odors even when phylogenetic relationships are accounted for.

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http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=13478541 I have given the link because there is general data about the mushroom. If you like scientific link supporting my claim more precisely:

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Case Report: A 46-year-old man was admitted with nausea, vomiting and acute anuria 9 days after he had eaten Cortinarius speciocissimus.

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http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=17431991or guy twisting facts like me:

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Unfortunately, instead of excreting the toxin in the urine, the kidneys return the poison to the blood, enduring an unnoticeably small amount of damage that doesn't manifest itself for several weeks, when kidney failure ensues!

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econetwork.net - econetwork Resources and Information.Again - I do not see any darwinistic "survival strategy" of poison that take effect after so many days that animal cannot remember what could be the source of its nuisance. Of course I have to admit I am not sure if animals react to orellanine the same way as men do.Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

No, that is what you are claiming, you haven't actually explained anything. Do they consider the distinction between non-lethal and lethal toxins? If not then the article doesn't address the point I made. Instead it relates to the side poin I made that visual perception in fungivores might be a question and the idea that aposematic signalling is done by olfaction instead is no problem for neodarwinism, but there is no reason it can't be done by both in distinct situations. The previous link didn't support your claim imprecisely, it didn't support it at all and neither does your new one. 9 days still isn't after 3 weeks, and neither is 17 days which is the later time for the onset of symptoms that your new paper gives.Can't you just admit that your 'after 3 weeks' claim was wrong? Once again, if the form that 'nuisance' takes is 'possible fatal kidney damage', as your site suggests, then it hardly matters if the animal remembers what it ate or not.Care to address the point, or do you have some more links which have nothing to do with it to bring up?TTFN,WK

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According darwinism if something is poisonous it should tend to show it up using bright coloration.

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Nope. What would be predicted is that organisms that use toxicity as a passive defence and cannot survive having part of the body ingested are likely to evolve strategies to warn that they are toxic. Toxicity is not much of a survival trait if you die. Now, since mushrooms don't die if they get part of their body eaten, displaying their toxicity is not a survival advantage. If anything, it'd be a slight disadvantage, since producing the pigments requires energy.

Are you sure that only PART of body of mushroom is eaten by wild animals? Maybe they are eaten as whole and all mushrooms under a tree is eaten as well. Anyway there is - as far as I know and as I cited a research in my previous post - not known case of poisoned wild animals due eating mushrooms. One of the most poisonous mushroom Amanita phalloides has its cap mostly green. The color could be - I dare say - in grass and forest perceived as cryptic. Poison take effect after many hours and not instantly. Any darwinstic explanation of "survival advantage"?
- consider the fact that most mushorooms are eatable, tasty and yet have often more conspicuos coloration (they "wanted" to be eaten and A. phalloides don't?).Edited by MartinV, : "poisoned wild animals" instead of "poisoned animals". There are cases of poisoned pets. Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

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Are you sure that only PART of body of mushroom is eaten by wild animals? Maybe they are eaten as whole and all mushrooms under a tree is eaten as well. Anyway there is - as far as I know and as I cited a research in my previous post - not known case of poisoned wild animals due eating mushrooms.

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Well, as the fruiting body can be destroyed without killing the mushroom, it doesn't matter. Also, what the hell is that last sentence saying? Is it claiming that no wild animal has ever been killed by a poisonous mushroom? Because that's bullshit.

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One of the most poisonous mushroom Amanita phalloides has its cap mostly green. The color could be - I dare say - in grass and forest perceived as cryptic. Poison take effect after many hours and not instantly. Any darwinstic explanation of "survival advantage"?

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Well, the color makes it less likely to be eaten. If it is eaten, the fungus will likely survive. The poison? Well, most things that eat fungi are small, and thus will die far more rapidly than humans, due to the lower amount of toxins that are needed for a lethal dose. It's pretty basic stuff.

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Wild animals eat fungi, yet mushroom poisonings in nature are unknown

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http://www.springerlink.com/content/t772216861025u66 Fungus will survive if its mushrooms (its reproductive organs so to say) is eaten or not.(Might be my grasp of english is not good enough - and mushroom and fungus is the same word? How we than call the part of fungus that is in the earth and have symbiotic relationship with the tree roots?)Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

Mushrooms is used as a term for a particular group of fungi and also a term for the fruiting body of those fungi. There are many other types of fungi which are not mushrooms.TTFN,WK