r/evolution

I have a light interest in biology, evolution and taxonomy, but I am nowhere near an expert. I like to point out that birds are dinosaurs, but would like to have an equivalent taxonomic example for humans to explain this to people. Basically "birds are dinosaurs just like humans are [clade]" if that makes sense.

What "level" of taxonomy would be a fair comparison? Ape, primate, whatever - which would be good to use to illustrate the concept?

so foxes retrace their exact steps backwards when being chased then jump sideways so the predator loses the trail right. but how did the first fox ever figure this out. because the thing is this only works if you do it for like hundreds of steps, doing it for a few steps does nothing the predator can still see you. so how does gradual evolution even explain this because half the behavior is pointless. there had to be a first fox that did the whole thing start to finish for it to even work. how does that happen

It seems most (derived) marine reptile clades like Ichthyosaurs, Mosasaurs and Plesiosaurs all gave live birth to their young but sea turtles never evolved to do this? Is this a case of “it just never occurred” or is there some selection pressure that differs between the species or something else, idk that’s why I’m asking lol

I went to my backyard and I saw tens of bugs flying around a lamp. That said I researched a little bit about why it happens and it turns out it is because they use the moon as a means of navigation and the lamp simulates the moon in their eyes.

Now that lamps itself are used as traps (eletrical or also as a free feast to predators) and also even if they dont serve as traps they slow down the bug and prevent the bug from feeding or mating .

Shouldn‘t bugs evolve not to fall Into this?

I mean bugs are the kind of animal to generally have short generational intervals so shouldn’t mutations that allowed them to escape lights and continue breeding/feeding have already emerged and be bene to them allowing the ones that have them to keep spreading it?

thanks beforehand

And if I have missed any other evolutionary forces than those listed in the title question, please also mention them.

I'm curious. I'm 25y on my period and it's painful, I wish I could rip my uterus off ( I did consult with doctor but ALL of them don't recommend removing it ) What's the point of evolution that make female human shred uterus wall every 28 days -ish circle and bleed for 3-7 days. The blood smell attract bugs , animals in the wild and I believe in oogaga bonga of time we don't have sanitary pad. So woman was living with blood dripping outta vjn every month. And cramping is unpleasant, like random kick in your nuts every hour * 3-7 days *repeatedly every month ...why human don't evolve to not bleed menstrual or select breeding that only non cramp will be selected. ? I never see animal with menstruation... Why only human ?? Or did I miss something?

It seems so weird from evolutional point , the best memory is at school years but frontal lobe/ prefrontal cortex development occurs much later, wouldn't it be better if both happened at earlier years , wishful thinking

It's either the stupidest or the smartest question. The number of diabetic and people with fatty liver is exponentially growing. Could the next step in human body evolution be stronger liver, with the ability to handle sugar and alcohol with ease?

Is there a reason why we evolved to have different blood groups?

I’m curious in how people evolved based on where they live, like, I heard that europeans in Europe 40,000 years ago had dark skin, but how did they become white, was it a slow process breeding with the lightest of the dark for thousands of years or was there some kind of mutation or whatever like with blue eyes, And I googled what causes mutations (cell division and replication errors) but I still don’t really know what that is or how it works.. I feel like there’s a big gap in my knowledge when it comes to evolution and biology as a whole and I really don’t know where to begin. like, at all.

Why isn't there some holy grail form that all organisms converge to? There must theoretically be the probabilistically best survive&reproduce biological machine? Is it that nature is just too random and favors random things at random times?

And I hope you don't say it's rising entropy. The concept was always confusing to me. Why would chaos arise? And some say entropy is not chaos.

im white an i got curly hair but usually european ppl have straight to wavy hair and now i ask my self where my ancestors might be from cuz i also got bigger lips then most white ppl i see does anybody have a guess 😭

I don't see the purpose of sexual dimorphism in humans, and I would like to know what purpose this difference between human men and women has served during evolution.

Forrest and Erika talking evolution!

This is a recurring human condition:

1. Very senior elders, out of love for their children, want to die before they become a burden to their families

2. The children, out of love for parents/grandparents, are not willing to let go of their very senior elderly family members

Why hasn't evolution solved this impasse?

Why hasn't human families adapted to align the interests between (1) and (2)?

Why must this impasse recur again and again? Can't natural selection find a way to align these interests?

Can't nature suppress feelings of love at this stage so that "letting" the elderly go won't be a stumbling block in the human heart? (example: human civilization to legislate a maximum ceiling for lifespan etc.)

See also: The publication in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Science

I have been reading old stuff from Maynard and Price (1973 the logic of animal conflict (https://www.nature.com/articles/246015a0)

One thing I do not understand in the result they show when they compare the five strat is the column where the mouse gets 19.5 pts versus the Hawk.

Hawk get 80 versus mouse, which make sense (60 for winning and 20 for having a quick victory).

now when the mouse play the Hawk, the mouse posture, hawk attack. Mouse then retreat. so mouse gets 20 for quick end to game. assuming it was not armed in the fight (10% odds), it got a scratch (-2) from the attack of the hawk it should have a maximun of 18 pts.

And so, how does the mouse get to 19.5? thanks!

Just a thought

say the birds living in a rural country side side area or the rats living in the cities

for instance

I grew up on a cattle farm in Greece and so I thought I knew what a cows ‘moo’ sounded like, then when I came to England I thought that the cows here sound different, like a bit more high pitched? And every time I go back home I feel like the Greek cows sound different to the English cows lol? Someone tell me I’m not going mad with this theory 🤣