Lost on the Information Superhighway

[robinturner]

One thing students on my "Technology, Consciousness and Society" course love to say is that with the Internet, anyone can find any information they want. Aside from the fact that half the world's population don't even have access to a telephone, let alone the Internet, it's sometimes hard to find even the simplest things.

Last night I was chatting to my wife about domestic animals (as one does) and the question of the origins of sheep came up. "Oh, I'll look it up on the Internet next time I'm in the office," I said confidently. After over an hour's searching, in which I ploughed through dozens of guides to wildlife and polemics for and against the theory of evolution, I was still unable to find from which animal the modern sheep evolved.

So please, anyone - what was it?

Comments

[asteriskhere.livejournal.com]

I typed "origins of domestic sheep" into the search field at google.com and found this:

"The origin of domestic sheep is unknown. It is almost certain, however, that several--perhaps many--varieties of wild sheep were tamed and that the modern varieties of domestic sheep are the result of crossbreeding. The domestic varieties bear little likeness to any wild species that exist today."

I haven't looked yet to see the origins of wild sheep, though.

[asteriskhere.livejournal.com]

This link might be helpful -

http://www.deer.rr.ualberta.ca/library/phylogeny/Phylogeny.html

[solri.livejournal.com]

Got it! Domestic sheep come from a variety of wild ancestors of the genus Ovis, in the subfamily Caprinae of the Bovidae family, which also includes cows, deer and other hollow-horned ruminants, all of which in turn are Artiodactyla which arose in the Paleocene.

Now why did I want to know that?