If you lined up all animal and plant species together (in no order), on average, every fifth specie would be a(n)...

The answer is beetle.

There are estimated to be 750,000,000,000,000,000 of them alive at the moment and there are 350,000 known species. However, the actual number is estimated to be 8,000,000.

What is their success down to? FLOWERING PLANTS. As the new flowers crept across the planet, the beetle followed.

Beetles are also very promiscuous. The male beetle starts by using its penis to clear out the previous male's sperm, before unleashing his own. Unfortunately, his his rival's sperm has a way of sticking to his penis so his next conquest has a 1 in 8 chance of finding herself fertilised by a beetle she has never met.

i chose beetle but i thought it interesting that you didn't list any plant species as choices after making that a part of the question!!!! so that made me guess it wasn't a plant species!

Beetle?

"Worms" includes three major phyla (Nematoda, Platyhelminthes, Annelida) and several minor phyla, "beetles" represents a subgroup (order Coleoptera) of a single phyla (Arthropoda). True, there are probably a lot of undiscovered beetle species but 8 million represents the upper estimate and beetles have been studied quite intensively, whereas worms have often been neglected (apart from Platyhelminthes). I'll happily stick to my answer of worms. This isn't something where we know what the answer is yet...

Asked by a theologian what could be inferred about the mind of the Creator from a study of His works, J.B.S. Haldane dryly replied, "He has an inordinate fondness for beetles."*

* Although like many other dry replies throughout history, this is probably apocryphal. He probably came up with it 10 minutes after the theologian left and thought, "Fudge! I totally should have said that!".

Probably a beetle.

The singular of species is species. Specie means something entirely different...

I think bacteria.

> i chose beetle but i thought it interesting that you didn't list any
> plant species as choices after making that a part of the question!!!!
> so that made me guess it wasn't a plant species!

Oh yeh, didn't realise that. Still, what do I know about plants

> Asked by a theologian what could be inferred about the mind of the
> Creator from a study of His works, J.B.S. Haldane dryly replied, "He
> has an inordinate fondness for beetles."*
>
> * Although like many other dry replies throughout history, this
> is probably apocryphal. He probably came up with it 10 minutes after
> the theologian left and thought, "Fudge! I totally should have said
> that!".

I have heard of JBS Haldane before. Was he an important scientist of his time?

> The singular of species is species. Specie means something entirely
> different...

What's the difference?

> I think bacteria.

Bacteria is not an animal nor a plant.

Look it up.

> The singular of species is species. Specie means something entirely
> different...


Yeah, I think it refers to gold or silver as backing for hard currency.

> Look it up.

SPECIES: Obsolete. specie; coin.

It seems the word 'specie' is now obsolete for the word species. It's funny because a well known English author Stephen Fry referred to it as specie. However, he is about as obsolete as the word. Or is it just an English thing?

In a word - yes! He was an evolutionist and geneticist and the source of the quote often used by Richard Dawkins - "The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we *can* suppose".

When Darwin wrote On The Origin of Species, he was completely unaware of the work of Gregor Mendel on genetics and inheritance. He knew that evolution existed, but didn't know the process by which it happened. Haldane's pioneering work was on examining the mathematics of natural selection and formulating the first mathematical models to explain how genes spread through populations.

He was also a daring and often reckless experimenter - willing to subject not only himself but his wife and close friends to dangerous situations.

Prior to his work in evolutionary theory, one of the areas he was interested in was decompression theory - he even had his own chamber. In one experiment, he wanted to see what would happen if he simulated a rapid ascent. What happened was that two of his teeth exploded. In another decompression experiment he perforated an eardrum, but later remarked, 'the drum generally heals up; and if the hole remains in it, although one is somewhat deaf, one can blow tobacco smoke out of the ear in question, which is quite a social accomplishment.'

In other words - he was fudging mental. But the world is a richer place for having had him in it.

> In a word - yes! He was an evolutionist and geneticist and the source
> of the quote often used by Richard Dawkins - "The universe is not
> only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we *can* suppose".
>
> When Darwin wrote On The Origin of Species, he was completely unaware
> of the work of Gregor Mendel on genetics and inheritance. He knew
> that evolution existed, but didn't know the process by which it happened.
> Haldane's pioneering work was on examining the mathematics of natural
> selection and formulating the first mathematical models to explain
> how genes spread through populations.
>
> He was also a daring and often reckless experimenter - willing to
> subject not only himself but his wife and close friends to dangerous
> situations.
>
> Prior to his work in evolutionary theory, one of the areas he was
> interested in was decompression theory - he even had his own chamber.
> In one experiment, he wanted to see what would happen if he simulated
> a rapid ascent. What happened was that two of his teeth exploded.
> In another decompression experiment he perforated an eardrum, but
> later remarked, 'the drum generally heals up; and if the hole remains
> in it, although one is somewhat deaf, one can blow tobacco smoke out
> of the ear in question, which is quite a social accomplishment.'
>
> In other words - he was fudging mental. But the world is a richer
> place for having had him in it.

Sounds like quite a man.

Thanks

I thought it meant money a little more generally, or else specifically in coins.

> I thought it meant money a little more generally, or else specifically
> in coins.

From Wikipedia: Hard money policies are those which are opposed to fiat currency and thus in support of a specie standard, usually gold or silver.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_money_%28policy%...

So, however you want to interpret that..

bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz TIME'S UP!
I don't know.

monkeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

A fly I think.