24 September 2011

Tortoise skeleton

A really fascinating construction, when you think about it.

Image from Biomedical Ephemera, via A London Salmagundi.

5 comments:

  1. It reminds me of Dougal Dixon's "vacuumorph," a hypothetical engineered human that could live in space.
    This is its skeleton:
    http://media.photobucket.com/image/vacuumorph/xlaststandxx/VACUUMORPH.jpg
    And the whole creature:
    http://images.wikia.com/aliens/images/d/da/Vacuumorph.jpg

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  2. For some unknown reason I always thought the spine would be on the bottom supporting everything on top.

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  3. OOh, I'm so glad someone else likes Dougal Dixon - the kids adore his future evolution books and love "designing" their own alternatives.

    The shell is adapted from ribs, so it'd have to be at the top!

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  4. The mechanics of their breathing is also very cool....they cannot expand their ribcage, and do not have a muscular diaphragm. Instead they rely on the movement of their limbs to increase or decrease the volume of their body cavity, pulling air in or pushing it out.

    more here: http://www.britishcheloniagroup.org.uk/vetscorner/respiratory.htm

    (the first straight-forward explanation google offered)

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  5. Just looking at this gives me a stiff neck.

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