The crocoduck is a fictitious hybrid animal with the head of a crocodile and the body of a duck. It was proposed in 2007 by young-Earth creationists Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron to be an animal that should exist, were their misconceptions about the theory of evolution true. The animal became an internet meme used to ridicule common misrepresentations of evolution, namely, that the theory predicts forms intermediate between any two currently living organisms.
In 2007, young-Earth creationists Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort participated in a televised debate, parts of which were aired on ABC Nightline , on the existence of God. Kirk Cameron held up composite pictures of what "we imagined would be genuine species-to-species transitional forms", including the "crocoduck", the "bullfrog", and the "sheepdog". The "crocoduck" was an animal with the head of a crocodile and the body of a duck, the "bullfrog" was an animal with the head of a bull and the body of a frog, and the "sheepdog" was an animal with the head of a dog and the body of a sheep. These pictures were used as a straw man argument to ridicule the theory of evolution as represented by Cameron and Comfort. [1]
This claim was widely publicized and ridiculed as an example of creationist misconceptions. In The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution , the evolutionary scientist Richard Dawkins included a section titled 'Show me your crocoduck!' in which he compared this to the question put by another creationist as to why there was no transitional fossil "fronkey" between frogs and monkeys, and described it as a warped misunderstanding of evolution. Modern species share a common ancestor, but are neither descended from each other nor from some crude composite chimera, and ducks are not descended from crocodiles. An illustration shows the Crocoduck Tie, designed by web designer Josh Timonen in commemoration of this misconception. [2] Dawkins has stated that "There are only two in existence. PZ Myers has one. I'm proud to say I have the other." [3] Dawkins' tie made a prominent appearance on an episode of The Colbert Report . [4]
In 2003, [5] new fossils of several types of ancient crocodile were found, including one with a flat broad snout reminiscent of a duck's bill, though it has teeth and is obviously crocodilian rather than bird-like. This genus has been named Anatosuchus or "DuckCroc", and it had an upright stance rather than the sprawled legs of modern crocodiles. [6] [7] Pelagornithid seabirds have serrated beaks that resemble teeth and have been recovered as fowl. In 2014, Paleontologist Paul Sereno described the semi-aquatic reconstruction of Spinosaurus as a "half duck, half crocodile". [8] In addition, the feathered dinosaurs Halszkaraptor and Natovenator show adaptations for swimming and diving similar to modern waterbirds.
The most recent common ancestor of duck and crocodiles is the base of the Archosauria clade, and was probably superficially similar to modern crocodiles. No fossil of this common ancestor are known to exist, but groups such as Phytosauria and Proterochampsia are near to the base of the archosaur clade. Although the phylogenetic distance from these groups to ducks and crocodiles are equal, in form and likely behaviour they are more similar to crocodiles.[ citation needed ] For Phytosauria at least, it was due to parallel evolution, with phytosaurs and crocodilians adapting to similar semi-aquatic predator niches.
The author and illustrator Chih-Yuan Chen from Taiwan produced the bestselling children's story Guji Guji in 2004, [9] a modern-day twist on The Ugly Duckling , in which a crocodile egg rolls into a duck's nest and is raised in a brood of ducklings, [10] growing up as a "crocoduck" who thinks he is "not a bad crocodile", but "not exactly a duck either." [11]
Crocodiles or true crocodiles are large, semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term “crocodile” is sometimes used more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia, which includes the alligators and caimans, the gharial and false gharial as well as other, extinct, taxa.
Crocodylia is an order of semiaquatic, predatory reptiles known as crocodilians. They first appeared during the Late Cretaceous and are the closest living relatives of birds. Crocodilians are a type of crocodylomorph pseudosuchian, a subset of archosaurs that appeared about 235 million years ago and were the only survivors of the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event. The order includes the true crocodiles, the alligators and caimans, and the gharial and false gharial. Although the term "crocodiles" is sometimes used to refer to all of these, it is less ambiguous to use "crocodilians".
Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism which holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God between about 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. In its most widespread version, YEC is based on the religious belief in the inerrancy of certain literal interpretations of the Book of Genesis. Its primary adherents are Christians and Jews who believe that God created the Earth in six literal days.
Archosauria or archosaurs is a clade of diapsid sauropsid tetrapods, with birds and crocodilians being the only extant representatives. Although broadly classified as reptiles, which traditionally exclude birds, the cladistic sense of the term includes all living and extinct relatives of birds and crocodilians such as non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, phytosaurs, aetosaurs and rauisuchians as well as many Mesozoic marine reptiles. Modern paleontologists define Archosauria as a crown group that includes the most recent common ancestor of living birds and crocodilians, and all of its descendants.
Answers in Genesis (AiG) is an American fundamentalist Christian apologetics parachurch organization. It advocates young Earth creationism on the basis of its literal, historical-grammatical interpretation of the Book of Genesis and the Bible as a whole. Out of belief in biblical inerrancy, it rejects the results of scientific investigations that contradict their view of the Genesis creation narrative and instead supports pseudoscientific creation science. The organization sees evolution as incompatible with the Bible and believes anything other than the young Earth view is a compromise on the principle of biblical inerrancy.
Ray Comfort is a New Zealand-born Christian minister, evangelist and young Earth creationist who lives in the United States. Comfort started Living Waters Publications, as well as the ministry The Way of the Master, in Bellflower, California, and has written several books.
Archosauriformes is a clade of diapsid reptiles encompassing archosaurs and some of their close relatives. It was defined by Jacques Gauthier (1994) as the clade stemming from the last common ancestor of Proterosuchidae and Archosauria. Phil Senter (2005) defined it as the most exclusive clade containing Proterosuchus and Archosauria. Gauthier as part of the Phylonyms (2020) defined the clade as the last common ancestor and all descendants of Gallus, Alligator, and Proterosuchus. Archosauriforms are a branch of archosauromorphs which originated in the Late Permian and persist to the present day as the two surviving archosaur groups: crocodilians and birds.
Phytosaurs are an extinct group of large, mostly semiaquatic Late Triassic archosauriform reptiles. Phytosaurs belong to the order Phytosauria and are sometimes referred to as parasuchians. Phytosauria, Parasuchia, Parasuchidae, and Phytosauridae have often been considered equivalent groupings containing the same species. Some recent studies have offered a more nuanced approach, defining Parasuchidae and Phytosauridae as nested clades within Phytosauria as a whole. The clade Phytosauria was defined by Paul Sereno in 2005 as Rutiodon carolinensis and all taxa more closely related to it than to Aetosaurus ferratus, Rauisuchus tiradentes, Prestosuchus chiniquensis, Ornithosuchus woodwardi, or Crocodylus niloticus. Phytosaurs were long-snouted and heavily armoured, bearing a remarkable resemblance to modern crocodilians in size, appearance, and lifestyle, as an example of convergence or parallel evolution.
Carl Edward Baugh is an American young Earth creationist. Baugh has claimed to have discovered human footprints alongside non-avian dinosaur footprints near the Paluxy River in Texas. Baugh promoted creationism as the former host of the Creation in the 21st Century TV program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
The Orinoco crocodile is a critically endangered crocodile. Its population is very small, and they can only be found in the Orinoco river basin in Venezuela and Colombia. Extensively hunted for their skins in the 19th and 20th centuries, it is one of the most endangered species of crocodiles. It is a very large species of crocodilian; males have been reported up to 6.8 m in the past, weighing over 900 kg (2,000 lb), but such sizes do not exist today, 5.2 m being a more widely accepted maximum size. A large male today may attain 4.2 m in length and can weigh up to 450 kg (1,000 lb), while females are substantially smaller with the largest likely to weigh around 225 kg (496 lb). Sexual dimorphism is not as profound as in other crocodilian species. The coloration is light even in adults.
Pseudosuchia is one of two major divisions of Archosauria, including living crocodilians and all archosaurs more closely related to crocodilians than to birds. Pseudosuchians are also informally known as "crocodilian-line archosaurs", in contrast to the "bird-line archosaurs" or Avemetatarsalia. Despite Pseudosuchia meaning "false crocodiles", the name is a misnomer as true crocodilians are now defined as a subset of the group.
The physiology of dinosaurs has historically been a controversial subject, particularly their thermoregulation. Recently, many new lines of evidence have been brought to bear on dinosaur physiology generally, including not only metabolic systems and thermoregulation, but on respiratory and cardiovascular systems as well.
Jerry Allen Coyne is an American biologist and skeptic known for his work on speciation and his commentary on intelligent design. A professor emeritus at the University of Chicago in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, he has published numerous papers on the theory of evolution. His concentration is speciation and ecological and evolutionary genetics, particularly as they involve the fruit fly, Drosophila. In 2023 he became a fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Kirk Thomas Cameron is an American actor, evangelist, and television host. He first gained fame as a teen actor playing Mike Seaver on the ABC sitcom Growing Pains (1985–1992), a role for which he was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards.
The Atlas of Creation is a series of creationist books written by Adnan Oktar under the pen name Harun Yahya. Oktar published volume 1 of The Atlas of Creation with Global Publishing, Istanbul, Turkey in October 2006, volumes 2 and 3 followed in 2007, and volume 4 in 2012. The first volume is over 800 pages long. The Turkish original was translated into English, German, Chinese, French, Dutch, Italian, Urdu, Hindi and Russian.
Crocodyliformes is a clade of crurotarsan archosaurs, the group often traditionally referred to as "crocodilians". They are the first members of Crocodylomorpha to possess many of the features that define later relatives. They are the only pseudosuchians to survive the K-Pg extinction event.
Pakasuchus is a genus of notosuchian crocodyliform distinguished by its unusual mammal-like appearance, including mammal-like teeth that would have given the animal the ability to chew. It also had long, slender legs and a doglike nose. Fossils have been found in the Galula Formation of Rukwa Rift Basin of southwestern Tanzania, and were described in 2010 in the journal Nature. Pakasuchus is originally considered to lived approximately 105 million years ago, in the mid-Cretaceous, but later age of site is reconsidered to the late Cretaceous, Cenomanian to Campanian instead. The type species is P. kapilimai. Pakasuchus means "cat crocodile" in reference to its catlike skull.
Reptiles arose about 320 million years ago during the Carboniferous period. Reptiles, in the traditional sense of the term, are defined as animals that have scales or scutes, lay land-based hard-shelled eggs, and possess ectothermic metabolisms. So defined, the group is paraphyletic, excluding endothermic animals like birds that are descended from early traditionally-defined reptiles. A definition in accordance with phylogenetic nomenclature, which rejects paraphyletic groups, includes birds while excluding mammals and their synapsid ancestors. So defined, Reptilia is identical to Sauropsida.
Planocraniidae is an extinct family of eusuchian crocodyliforms known from the Paleogene of Asia, Europe and North America. The family was coined by Li in 1976, and contains three genera, Boverisuchus, Duerosuchus and Planocrania. Planocraniids were highly specialized crocodyliforms that were adapted to living on land. They had extensive body armor, long legs, and blunt claws resembling hooves, and are sometimes informally called "hoofed crocodiles".
The coexistence of avian dinosaurs (birds) and humans is well established historically and in modern times. The coexistence of non-avian dinosaurs and humans exists only as a recurring motif in speculative fiction, because in the real world non-avian dinosaurs have at no point coexisted with humans.
#30 Yes, it is a great tie. The Crocoduck Tie, designed by Josh Timonen. There are only two in existence. PZ has one. I'm proud to say I have the other.