Talk:Supraorbital gland

What's that got to do with it?

I question the relevance of the image of a human skull, just to show the location of the supraorbital ridge (on a human). If humans HAD a supraorbital gland, it might be useful, but as we don't, I find it distracting and confusing. I believe the verbal description is sufficiently clear without the image. Now, if someone could come up with an image of a PENGUIN's skull, *that* would be interesting! What does anyone else think? --Mpwrmnt 08:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

External Links

Both of the External Links listed in this article appear to be broken. The murdoch.edu link just comes up blank on my screen, but maybe my over-protective security system is just doing its job - who knows?

At zoo.org I found a page which might conceivably be the one that was originally referred to. It's at [1] Is there any way of knowing? --Mpwrmnt 10:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Which came first?

Living in saltwater environments poses a large problem for penguins because saltwater can be detrimental to a penguin's health. Hmmm... Seems to me like the "problem" has been "solved" by the evolution of the supraorbital gland, hasn't it? I submit that they DON'T have a problem, BECAUSE they have supraorbital glands! And anyway, isn't it just *ingesting* the saltwater that's hazardous? Simply living in a saltwater environment isn't in and of itself injurious, is it?

As a result, saltwater enters their system and must be effectively excreted. To do so, the supraorbital gland has evolved in the penguin. As I understand it, the penguins who were able to filter the salt out of their system survived long enough to reproduce. Isn't that how evolution goes? There isn't someone out there saying, "Oops! These kids need a salt filter, quick!! Better invent a supraorbital gland!"

If people agree, perhaps we could re-word a couple of sentences in there... --Mpwrmnt 10:34, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I fixed some of the problems

Ok, i fixed the issues with the misleading involvement with evolution and some other complaints. I think the picture of the human skull is fine because it shows the relative position of the supraorbital ridge. Perhaps if someone could get an image of a penguin skull that would be super. Oh and feel free to add relevant sources. Orangefizzlebiz 00:32, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Salt gland?

Is this the exact same organ as a "salt gland"? If so, maybe merge? StevePrutz (talk) 03:02, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's the exact same organ. Gfrankfurter (talk) 06:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)