Animal Diversity! Today we had Dr. Graham Bell, who is a thin old white British guy who lectured on the differences between classical and new phylogenetic methods and their results. He was so awesomely stereotypical in his wispy hair, tidy sweater over shirt and tie, pressed pants, and he even drew phylogenetic trees on the blackboard.

All this in the Redpath Auditorium, which is the most perfect university lecture venue I have ever been in (for reference, it looks like this). Basically this is exactly what I pictured studying evolutionary bio would look like.

Anyways here have some witty and interesting phylogeny geek quotes from Bell:

“I know you want to ask, “Is it so important? Do we really need to know all the names of these groups?” And the answer is yes of course you do.”

“When you’re looking at a phylogenetic tree, you’re not looking at a fact! What you have is a perpetual hypothesis.”

“So all in all I’m pretty sure Haeckel would get a D in this class based on his phylogenies.”