Blog Post: Module 9

    The world truly is full of the most amazing and unique organisms that have evolved their traits in order to adapt to their environment. One species that I have always found fascinating is the shoebill stork species. This particular species has evolved from dinosaurs millions of years ago and are also known as Balaeniceps rex, whalehead, and whale-headed stork. The reason I’m so fascinated with this species is because of how brave and almost a little scary looking they are. Shoebill storks are known for having a large amount of patience when trying to catch their prey. Shoebill storks mainly gravitate towards feeding on large prey such as lungfish, snakes, and even crocodiles! Some adaptations that the shoebill storks have are their long toes to help with balance, a nictitating membrane to protect their eyes, and a foot-long bill that helps with their hunting. I have found a few articles pertaining to the adaptive hypotheses that scientists have created while examining shoebill storks which have proved links to herons and hammerkops. The hammerkops and shoebill storks have similar tongue morphology, while the herons and shoebill storks share similar behavior patterns and stapes morphology. Shoebill Stork - Facts and Beyond | Biology Dictionary

Comments

  1. Megan McCoyNovember 30, 2021 at 9:09 AM

    Hey Lauren! Very interesting content you have here. I am not very familiar with this bird so it was interesting to hear about. I find it fascinating that their bill is a foot long. Great work!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Post Module 3

Image
    When I first think of the term fitness, my head goes straight to people working out at the gym, really pumping some iron, or going on a really long run. However, from attending this week’s lecture, it completely changed my thought process as I received more insight on the evolutionary/biology perspective on fitness. Fitness in biology is not how strong and powerful one is, but instead, it is actually the process of how phenotypes can be passed onto the next generation through the gene pool. Fitness can be measured in a natural population by measuring an organism’s reproductive success, so basically just by keeping track of how many offspring an organism is able to reproduce. Therefore, an organism would be considered biologically fit if it were to produce a greater number of offspring. One example I have in mind is the bullfrog species. In order to quantify fitness, I would have to look at different mutations across the species, their environment, predators also ...
Read more

Introduction

     My name is Lauren Leiker and I am from Lenexa, Kansas. I am a junior here at K-State majoring in Human Health Biology on the Pre-Med track. Ever since I was a kid, I have always dreamed of working in the medical field. My father's health has also played a huge role in the reason why I want to work in the medical field. My father was diagnosed with a very rare condition called Dermatomyositis about 10 years ago. This is an autoimmune condition in which his immune system mistakenly attacks his muscles and organs. This one disease has progressed and in addition, has triggered various additional autoimmune diseases, like Raynaud's disease. He currently struggles with heart and lung disease as well as kidney failure. My drive to work in the medical field primarily started when my dad's health first began to deteriorate, and I soon came to the conclusion that I wanted to become a doctor to help not only my father but also other people struggling with their health for vario...
Read more

Blog Post: Module 11

      For this blog post, I decided to write about Rachel Carlton Abrams Ted Talk that is over (R)evolutionary Medicine. She first starts her talk explaining a simple prescription that we can help us in our daily lives. That simple prescription revolves around getting into alignment with our evolutionary nature. She states how there is a split between the life and environment that we have evolved to thrive in and the life and environment that majority of us are living in. She begins to worry me with the statement how that for the first time in our country, our children are expected to have shorter life spans due to the exposure to diseases of civilization. You would think with the amount of technology and resources we have nowadays, children would be expected to live longer and healthier lives than their parents. She explains how children will suffer from high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and high cholesterol.       So in order to solve this issu...
Read more