Friday, November 15, 2013

Goniurellia tridens

Not so common fruit fly.




Why or how having ants on a fruit fly's wings can serve an evolutionary advantage so brilliant the mimicry is precise is not clear. The article attempts an explanation and fails completely. They start off a paragraph intending to answer then the next sentence piddles out to fog. What did I miss? Nothing. 

9 comments:

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

I almost suspect a hoax, but nature is the biggest hoaxer of them all. Very cool.

bagoh20 said...

That shit will make you a believer. If that can happen by random mutation even over millions of years, then I can win the lottery today. I'm gonna drain my bank account and get some tickets.

virgil xenophon said...

Gives new meaning to the term "intelligent design," doesn't it bags?

deborah said...

Mmmm...or are we imposing our interpretation on a random pattern?

bagoh20 said...

Looks like ants to all of us, as well as other insects. I don't think that's a random interpretation.

I actually do see how this can happen by mutation and natural selection, but man, what a long shot it is to get it so perfect.

The thing is you have to really get your head around how long millions of years is, and how many recombinations of DNA would happen with all that fly sex. Totally impossible if they happened to first invent those tiny fly condoms that Titus wears, not to mention the impossibility of it if they adopted gay marriage way back. Thank God that fruit flies are all Catholic, even in the UAE.

deborah said...

I know, but I mean like the legs could be just random striations, etc. I mean the legs ARE random striations and the body a random blog. A fruit fly is super-duper tiny. How would an ant picture on it's wings help it? Not trying to be difficult, just sayin' :)

deborah said...

lol a random blog.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

deborah said...

..or are we imposing our interpretation on a random pattern?

The basis of evolution is that if you take a large amount of random data ( mutations ) and pass it through a non-random filter ( survival ) you can get surprisingly non-random results.

deborah said...

Thanks, Ig, that's an interesting way to look at it.