4 ms·

> Over a period of eight days, the wasp larva consumes the roach's internal organs in an order which guarantees that the roach will stay alive, at least until t

by Arun2009 16y ago

> Over a period of eight days, the wasp larva consumes the roach's internal organs in an order which guarantees that the roach will stay alive, at least until the larva enters the pupal stage and forms a cocoon inside the roach's body. Instances of 'inborn intelligence' never cease to amaze me. How in the world do the larvae know in which order to eat the organs?! If you have an instinct that is pretty low-level (say, pulling your hands away from a hot object), you could argue that your biology has been selected by evolution to respond in a particular way to that stimulus. I can also understand adults exhibiting a higher-level of intelligence - they could have learned it from their community or from direct experience. But tabula rasa minds exhibiting complex intelligence is just mind boggling.

phaedrus 16y ago
Suppose you have two variations of a gene; one produces larvae that prefer the taste of a vital organ, and eat that one first. The other variation prefers the taste of a less important organ, eating that first and eating the important organ only when it has exhausted its preferred option. If the second one is on average 5% more likely to complete its growing before the roach dies and its food supply rots, the second variation is likely to displace the first. Why would larvae eat only one organ at a time in the order of taste preference in the first place? Well if two variations of a gene exist, and one produces larvae that are not picky and damage many organs while feeding, while another produces larvae that are picky and thereby confine their damage to.one organ at a time, then if the second behavior is more successful it will begin to replace the first. The central.message of modern Darwinism is the accumulation of small changes can lead to big evolutions. Obviously I cannot say what the exact mechanism of this instance was but what I gave are examples of the types of incremental changes that may have contributed. Your incredulity is based on a straw man argument: you ask how does the animal know what the right order is, as if that had to come all at once ex nihilo.
- borism 16y ago
  Let's first start by verifying that there actually exists such behaviour - there are no citations for larvae lifecycle part in Wikipedia and I couldn't find any reference in papers. Maybe larvae just consumes a little of every organ it can get to. The whole story about it consuming non-essential organs first seems quite fishy - how many of those do cockroaches have anyway? Even if that's true, after eating away few organs you pretty sure to get organism failure no matter what order. Doesn't seem very smart strategy to me.
  - 51Cards 16y ago
    This would be the article you're looking for... http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-1090.1993.tb03531.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-1090.1993.... You'll need a Wiley Online Library membership to read all of it.

phaedrus 16y ago

Suppose you have two variations of a gene; one produces larvae that prefer the taste of a vital organ, and eat that one first. The other variation prefers the taste of a less important organ, eating that first and eating the important organ only when it has exhausted its preferred option. If the second one is on average 5% more likely to complete its growing before the roach dies and its food supply rots, the second variation is likely to displace the first. Why would larvae eat only one organ at a time in the order of taste preference in the first place? Well if two variations of a gene exist, and one produces larvae that are not picky and damage many organs while feeding, while another produces larvae that are picky and thereby confine their damage to.one organ at a time, then if the second behavior is more successful it will begin to replace the first. The central.message of modern Darwinism is the accumulation of small changes can lead to big evolutions. Obviously I cannot say what the exact mechanism of this instance was but what I gave are examples of the types of incremental changes that may have contributed. Your incredulity is based on a straw man argument: you ask how does the animal know what the right order is, as if that had to come all at once ex nihilo.

borism 16y ago
Let's first start by verifying that there actually exists such behaviour - there are no citations for larvae lifecycle part in Wikipedia and I couldn't find any reference in papers. Maybe larvae just consumes a little of every organ it can get to. The whole story about it consuming non-essential organs first seems quite fishy - how many of those do cockroaches have anyway? Even if that's true, after eating away few organs you pretty sure to get organism failure no matter what order. Doesn't seem very smart strategy to me.
- 51Cards 16y ago
  This would be the article you're looking for... http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-1090.1993.tb03531.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-1090.1993.... You'll need a Wiley Online Library membership to read all of it.