Alternatives to Haeckel's Infamous Embryo Diagram?

[lpetrich]

Since that diagram contains some serious Stierscheisse, I've been looking for alternatives that use present-day photographs. I've discovered these sites, but nothing in the format of that diagram:

http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/embryo/embryo.html (intro to comparative embryology)
http://www.med.upenn.edu/meded/public/berp/overview.mov (a nice overview movie)
http://www.visembryo.com/baby/index.html (human-embryo site; good introduction)
http://genex.hgu.mrc.ac.uk/Atlas/intro.html (mouse embryos)
http://mouseatlas.caltech.edu/home.html (mouse-embryo cross sections)
http://www.med.unc.edu/embryo_images/unit-welcome/welcome_htms/contents.htm (human and mouse embryo details)
http://www.neuro.uoregon.edu/k12/Development%20Stages.html (intro to zebrafish development)
http://zfin.org/zf_info/zfbook/stages/stages.html (details of zebrafish development)
http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/virtualembryo/db_tutorial.html ("Virtual Embryo"; has lots of pages of stuff)
http://zygote.swarthmore.edu/phyto1.html (Plant lifecycles, development; that site has lots of other nice stuff)

My patience has run out here, however.

But note how similar human and mouse embryos look.

[pz]

Right here (http://www.mk-richardson.com/Embryo%20Pictures.htm). 13 species, 3 different stages each, and the high-res version is 5669x2135 pixels.

This is Michael Richardson's series of photographs that were explicitly made to address Haeckel's misrepresentations.

[RBH]

Originally posted by pz
Right here (http://www.mk-richardson.com/Embryo%20Pictures.htm). 13 species, 3 different stages each, and the high-res version is 5669x2135 pixels.

This is Michael Richardson's series of photographs that were explicitly made to address Haeckel's misrepresentations. Richardson wasn't quite that hard on Haeckel in his 2002 Biol. Revs (http://www.mk-richardson.com/Publications.htm) review paper with Keuck:Haeckel's much-criticized embryo drawings are important as phylogenetic hypotheses, teaching aids, and evidence for evolution. While some criticisms of the drawings are legitimate, others are more tendentious.On the other hand, in his earlier (2001) Nature correspondence (A Question of Intent) Richardson is tougher on Haeckel.

In any case, I'll leave it to you devos and evo historians to sort it out.

RBH

[lpetrich]

Here's a paper from Richardson et al. exploring heterochrony (different timings) in land-vertebrate embryonic development:

http://www.tierzucht.tum.de:8080/WWW/Homepages/Bininda-Emonds/Publications/Tetrapods.pdf

Notice toward the end of the paper the remarkably-similar appearance of the embryos of diapsids (lizard, chicken) and mammals (deer, tarsier). There are some interesting differences, like the diapsids having much larger eyes at this stage than the mammals -- even though tarsiers end up growing very large eyes! This could reflect a nocturnal phase that is inferred for ancestral mammals for other reasons, like reduced color vision.

[monkenstick]

I know Biology 5th ed by Campbell uses photos of embryos to illustrate similarities

[Nic Tamzek]

Alan Gishlick of NCSE assembled all of the diagrams used in the textbook reviewed by Wells in Icons of Evolution:

http://www.ncseweb.org/icons/figure10.jpg

More diagrams:

ICONS OF EVOLUTION?
Why much of what Jonathan Wells writes about evolution is wrong
by Alan D. Gishlick (http://www.ncseweb.org/icons/index.htm)

[lpetrich]

http://www.uoguelph.ca/zoology/devobio/dbindex.htm (starfish, frog, and chicken development -- lots of cross sections)
http://anatomy.med.unsw.edu.au/cbl/embryo/Embryo.htm (mostly human, but also has other species, like pig)

[Dr.GH]

Thanks to all for some great links.