Genetic Inference

I was clearing out my photos this weekend, and I found a number of pictures that I had taken on my trip to Amsterdam Zoo a few months ago. One exhibit consisted of a long tree/time-line of Ammonite evolution, stretching from the Devonian up to the KT Boundary, showing which groups were descended from which. I found it wonderfully presented, with different colouring representing the different suborders, and fossils attached at various times, so you could see how the different forms changed over time. I really am a sucker for phylogenetic trees, especially those that manage to integrate other visual information.

The exhibit was slightly sad, however. It was up a relatively hidden away staircase in an already pretty out-of-the-way building. I stood there looking at it and taking pictures for a good half an hour, and nobody even came into the room, let alone spent any time looking at the exhibition. I found it a little tragic that someone had put so much effort into presenting so much information in a way that could be easily understood, and now it sits where not many people will see it. Added to this, I expect (though don’t know) that not many people will be interested in following ammonite evolution, especially when there are dinosaur bones around.

My hope is that the University of Amsterdam makes us of these sorts of resources in their classes: I remember loving the undergrad classes which involved wondering around the Cambridge museums, especially those that went through different groups, describing how they fit together in a classification system, and what that can tell us about how they evolved.

Anyway, I stuck the pictures I took together to reconstruct part of the exhibit. Click the (rather large) thumbnail below to see low quality .gif of it; when I get back I’ll upload a higher quality one.

UPDATE 17/04/09: Uploaded higher quality version, click thumbnail to view.