4 ms·
Or, more likely, at one point a mutation, or a group of mutations, gave rise to a small number of super-cheetahs that interbred, and those cheetahs completely o
by gumby 3y ago
Or, more likely, at one point a mutation, or a group of mutations, gave rise to a small number of super-cheetahs that interbred, and those cheetahs completely out-competed all other cheetahs until the remaining standard cheetahs, that had been enslaved rebelled under the cheetah Spartacus, overwhelming and eradicating the super-cheetahs using the super-cheetah's own aircraft and other weapons, though even in victory leaving only a small number of normal ones to continue the species.
Ockham's razor says my scenario is more likely.
- titzer 3y agolol, have an upvote.
- dboreham 3y agoI am Cheetahcus!
- sidewndr46 3y agoThe Third Feline Servile war was a very dangerous time indeed
- dredmorbius 3y agoThere do seem to be some evolutionary branch points in which a single occurrence of a mutation or adaptation seems to have proven overwhelmingly successful. The one I'm most familiar with is of the integration of mitochondria into eukaryotic cells. My understanding is that all mitochondria seem to trace to a common ancestor, which would suggest that this mutation appeared once, and was so overwhelmingly energetically advantageous that all eukaryotic life descended from that single individual. (There are non-mitochondrial life forms, including prokaryotic bacteria. But so far as I'm aware every complex multicellular life form, and quite a few unicellular ones, are all prokaryotes.)
- gumby 3y agoThere are many such captures, for example the cilia of ciliates or the flagellum of flagella.
- dredmorbius 3y agoBy captures, you're referring to incorporation of one species within another? That's not the point I'm emphasizing here. It's the overwhelming metabolic advantage afforded by mitochondrial ATP respiration. Of that, it seems only one variant has survived. It either emerged only once, or out-competed all prior and subsequent emergences.
- birracerveza 3y agoThey even made a videogame about that, the cheetahmen.