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Mammals have evolved into ant eaters 12 times since the dinosaur age – study (2025)
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- havblue 9mo agoSource: YouTube https://share.google/XA0msyff8lybu47FK https://share.google/XA0msyff8lybu47FK "Expert Wasted Entire Life Studying Anteaters" -The Onion
- scalemaxx 9mo agoSounds similar to the multiple evolution paths to crabs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation
- lelandfe 9mo agoAnother interesting fact I learned from HN: “Two randomly selected trees are not likely to be more closely related than any two other randomly selected plants. They're not a family but rather a strategy that evolution has rediscovered several times separately."
- UtopiaPunk 9mo agoAnt eating crabs when??
- themafia 9mo ago"Ants are great if you're really hungry and want two thousand of something." - Mitch Hedburg
- Y_Y 9mo ago"I used to evolve into an anteater, I still do, but I used to too"
- rajnathani 9mo agoThe OG quote by him is about rice. Nevertheless, very funny!
- wtcactus 9mo agoThis makes sense. The biomass of ants is enormous. It's about 10% of all present livestock on earth. It's a huge source of energy and protein. So, it stands to reason evolution took animals down the path of taking advantage of that source several times.
- Lord-Jobo 9mo agoIn other terms, the most populous, widespread, and consistently available plant-eater makes for an ideal carnivore target. Long after humans spread out across the stars, maybe the perfect human consuming predator will emerge.
- Qem 9mo ago> Long after humans spread out across the stars, maybe the perfect human consuming predator will emerge. It already emerged. Corporations.
- WesolyKubeczek 9mo ago> It already emerged. Corporations. It's more like people are corporations' gut bacteria that are always in dire health because the organism loves junk food of all kinds so much and sometimes is doing drugs too.
- d-lisp 9mo agoIt's strange to think we chose to hunt or raise large animals; and to perform all that such a choice implies i.e. growing plants to feed them and more generally farming, when we could just raise ants and plants.
- dlisboa 9mo agoIt's not strange at all. We grow what we eat, humans didn't start by eating insects. Plus growing plants specifically to feed livestock is an extremely recent development. Plus ants can't provide all the nutrients we need.
- ChrisArchitect 9mo agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44599334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44599334
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]