5 ms·
If fake eyes on butts are so useful, why didn't they evolve by themselves?
by danidiaz 10y ago
If fake eyes on butts are so useful, why didn't they evolve by themselves?
- steve19 10y agoHumans bred cows, they did not evolve. Nature's cows (buffalo etc.) live in very, very large herds for protection.
- unfathomable 10y agoDarwin had a term for this, selective breeding or artificial selection
- maxerickson 10y agoPedantic: cattle (cows be females). The aurochs didn't really live in large herds. It was just huge and cranky, and had big horns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs
- thaumasiotes 10y agoIt's always nice, if you're going to go around saying "pedantic:", to have what you say afterward be correct. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cow http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cow
- danidiaz 10y agoIt seems that no mammal has developed this strategy, at least for defense purposes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyespot_(mimicry) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyespot_(mimicry)
- bane 10y agoMany animals do. But not all animals evolve the same strategies.
- ericjang 10y agoSomething I've wondered about for awhile: why aren't there any animals that have an extra set of functional eyes on their backside? (I don't mean having eyes on either side of the head). Why isn't panoptic vision a thing?
- bemmu 10y agoInteresting, I guess the computations are expensive enough that the extra food required isn't worth the survival advantage. Or not enough time has passed yet. Give it another billion years.
- happyslobro 10y agoMaybe having eyespots in weird places would deter potential mates? That would be a pretty powerful evolutionary incentive to just not have something that weird back there.