2015

The Worshipful Company of Mercers were basically an association of Merchants dealing mainly with the luxury end of the cloth market. It is the first of the Great Twelve City Livery Companies. Although of even older origin, the Company was incorporated under a Royal Charter in 1394, the Company’s earliest extant Charter. The Company’s aim was to act as a trade association for general merchants, and especially for exporters of wool and importers of velvet, silk and other luxurious fabrics (mercers). By the 16th century many members of the Company had lost any connection with the original trade. Today, the Company exists primarily as a charitable institution, supporting a variety of causes. The Company’s motto is Honor Deo, Latin for "Honour to God". The Mercers’ Maiden is the symbol and coat of arms of the Company. She first appears on a seal in 1425. Her precise origins are unknown, and there is no written evidence as to why she was chosen as the Company’s emblem. She is often depicted wearing the fashions of any given period because she was not formally granted as a coat of arms until 1911. Over many centuries she has graced letterheads, legal documents, furnishings, and property of the Company. Maiden ‘property marks’, usually crafted out of stone, often adorned the exterior walls of buildings belonging to the Company, and are still common sights in London.

Megazostrodon is an extinct animal that is widely accepted as being one of the first mammals and which appeared in the fossil record approximately 200 million years ago. It did have some non-mammalian characteristics but they were sufficiently minor to warrant the analysis that this animal probably represents the final stage of the transition between cynodonts and true mammals. Megazostrodon was a small, furry, shrew-like animal between 10 to 12 centimetres (3.9 to 4.7 in) long which probably ate insects and small lizards. It is thought that it was nocturnal as it had a much larger brain than its cynodont relatives and the enlarged areas of its brain were found to be those that process sounds and smells. This was probably in order to avoid being in competition with the reptiles or becoming prey to the dinosaurs. These early mammals developed many traits which were to make them well-suited for a very active lifestyle. They developed four types of teeth (as opposed to the uniform teeth of the reptiles), incisors, canines, premolars and molars, which enabled them to chew and therefore process their food more thoroughly than their reptilian cousins. There is evidence that the inward-closing movement of the mandible suggests a shearing action to chew food. Their skeletons changed so that their limbs were more flexible (they became less laterally splayed, allowing for faster forward motion) and they developed a shorter ribcage and larger lungs to allow for faster respiration. The structure of their jaw bones changed, the lower jaw becoming a single bone — the dentary (as opposed to the seven different bones found in reptilian lower jaws). The other bones which once made up the jaw moved to the middle ear to create a hearing system. Probably the most important aspect of change in the evolution that led to these first mammals was that their direct ancestors (the cynodonts) had become warm-blooded. This meant that they relied on the food they ate to help sustain their body temperature rather than depending on their surrounding environment. This enabled them to maintain higher activity levels during the day than reptiles could (as reptiles frequently have to perform temperature regulation activities such as sun basking and seeking shade) and even to become nocturnal — a major advantage in a world where most predators were active during the day.