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This is really something. I can't begin to understand how a tiny insect can evolve a puppet that looks exactly like another insect.

shellfishgene 3y ago
I addition to coming up with an idea of the steps involved you have to consider the time this takes. You always read about some millions years, but if you stop and think about how many generations of the beetle this is and how this is a really, really long time, it makes more sense.
- lproven 3y ago
  The world is very old. Life is ancient. It took over a billion years just to invent photosynthesis, then another billion-odd to invent the efficient oxygen-generating kind of photosynthesis... then that killed almost everything and the whole thing sort of rebooted. The world froze for a billion years, then thawed, and then another floating single celled bacterium-like thing invented the idea of enclosing another bacterium thing as its "lung", its power plant... then after another billion years, they somehow came up with the plan of sticking together in clumps. And then, after 4 billion years of nothing much happening, but happening very slowly, half a billion years ago these clumps of cells started an arms race, and boom, in the blink of an eye, not that anything had come up with eyes or eyelids yet, there were millions of types of multicellular clumps growing in the sunlit water, or eating the growing clumps, and eating each other, and trying not to be eaten, and in a moment, there is an ocean full of squirming wiggling swimming fighting things. Out of which, half a billion years later, we evolved. Then we killed everything else except for a handful of stuff we eat. Then, we die. The very sad, pathetic thing about religious "creationism" is that they think their version is more amazing, more beautiful, more pleasing... because they are ignorant of the size and scale and complexity of the real thing. They are a small circle of people with their head down admiring a pebble that one of them is holding, exclaiming at its beauty, while they are standing in a building the size and complexity and wonder of a thousand cities -- that they have not noticed is there. Then they press the plunger down on the detonator and blow the whole thing up, not realising it will fall on their heads and kill them because they didn't see it.
lproven 3y ago
It is quite common. As the article says, other rove beetles evolved to be fake "stealth ants". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrmecophily_in_Staphylinidae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrmecophily_in_Staphylinidae They don't look much like ants to humans but they do to ants, which is what matters. Some spiders do the same: https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Ant-Mimicking_Spiders https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Ant-Mimicking_Spiders In fact lots of animals do, on account of there are so many ants in the world and you can benefit from [a] living in an ant colony [b] not being eaten by ants or [c] eating ants yourself and getting away with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_mimicry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_mimicry Even plants imitate insects: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/sneaky-orchids-manipulate-bees-pollination.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/sneaky-orchids-manipulate-bee... One orchid imitates an extinct bee so we only know how the bee looked from the orchid's "artist's impression". https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2013/09/02/a-flower-hints-at-the-appearance-of-an-extinct-bee/ https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2013/09/02/a-flower-hints-at-...

shellfishgene 3y ago

I addition to coming up with an idea of the steps involved you have to consider the time this takes. You always read about some millions years, but if you stop and think about how many generations of the beetle this is and how this is a really, really long time, it makes more sense.

lproven 3y ago
The world is very old. Life is ancient. It took over a billion years just to invent photosynthesis, then another billion-odd to invent the efficient oxygen-generating kind of photosynthesis... then that killed almost everything and the whole thing sort of rebooted. The world froze for a billion years, then thawed, and then another floating single celled bacterium-like thing invented the idea of enclosing another bacterium thing as its "lung", its power plant... then after another billion years, they somehow came up with the plan of sticking together in clumps. And then, after 4 billion years of nothing much happening, but happening very slowly, half a billion years ago these clumps of cells started an arms race, and boom, in the blink of an eye, not that anything had come up with eyes or eyelids yet, there were millions of types of multicellular clumps growing in the sunlit water, or eating the growing clumps, and eating each other, and trying not to be eaten, and in a moment, there is an ocean full of squirming wiggling swimming fighting things. Out of which, half a billion years later, we evolved. Then we killed everything else except for a handful of stuff we eat. Then, we die. The very sad, pathetic thing about religious "creationism" is that they think their version is more amazing, more beautiful, more pleasing... because they are ignorant of the size and scale and complexity of the real thing. They are a small circle of people with their head down admiring a pebble that one of them is holding, exclaiming at its beauty, while they are standing in a building the size and complexity and wonder of a thousand cities -- that they have not noticed is there. Then they press the plunger down on the detonator and blow the whole thing up, not realising it will fall on their heads and kill them because they didn't see it.

lproven 3y ago

It is quite common. As the article says, other rove beetles evolved to be fake "stealth ants". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrmecophily_in_Staphylinidae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrmecophily_in_Staphylinidae They don't look much like ants to humans but they do to ants, which is what matters. Some spiders do the same: https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Ant-Mimicking_Spiders https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Ant-Mimicking_Spiders In fact lots of animals do, on account of there are so many ants in the world and you can benefit from [a] living in an ant colony [b] not being eaten by ants or [c] eating ants yourself and getting away with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_mimicry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_mimicry Even plants imitate insects: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/sneaky-orchids-manipulate-bees-pollination.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/sneaky-orchids-manipulate-bee... One orchid imitates an extinct bee so we only know how the bee looked from the orchid's "artist's impression". https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2013/09/02/a-flower-hints-at-the-appearance-of-an-extinct-bee/ https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2013/09/02/a-flower-hints-at-...