Homo sapiens, “knowing man,” is the species that uses information to resist the rot of entropy and the burdens of evolution. Humans everywhere acquire knowledge about their landscape, its flora and fauna, the tools and weapons that can subdue them, and the networks and norms that entangle them with kin, allies, and…
The need for an internal skeleton stems largely from the nature of muscle tissue, which can exert force only by contracting and is therefore much more effective with a good lever system to work with. I belittle neither the intelligence nor the strength of the octopus; but in spite of Victor Hugo and most other writers…
If you go back far enough, everything lived in the sea - watery, salty alma mater of all life. At various points in evolutionary history, enterprising individuals from many different animal groups moved out on to the land, sometimes eventually to the most parched deserts, taking their own private sea water with them…