people often think of evolution as this purely positive force. very “survival of the fittest” types. the horse is a great example that evolution sometimes ends up making very very silly creatures.
It’s survival of the genetic line that reproduces enough to stay alive. The weird shit is often related to path dependence, or is just not enough of a detriment to affect evolutionary outcomes.
If a pair of animals (humans included) can raise >2.1 offspring that have >2.1 offspring themselves, that’s potentially a functioning species. Now, humans tend not to like this minimum requirement because we frown on dying as grandparents at age 30, but it works fine from a species point of view. That’s why the answer to “But how does [animal] deal with [common issue] in the wild” is usually “it dies”
Yeah. It dies (more often after procreating a couple of times). Death is also useful at a species level because it makes space for new (potentially fitter) individuals
Horses must have plenty of good evolutionary traits, because even without human breeding they’re very successful creatures. I guess they don’t reproduce quickly, so that isn’t it. I guess they can’t shrug off injuries. They must be really good at not getting caught by predators, so they live enough to have at least a couple of foals.
I mean, I think they also evolved on steppes and open plains, where running fast is not too often super dangerous, so breaking a leg is not common enough to counter balance the advantages of being fast.
people often think of evolution as this purely positive force. very “survival of the fittest” types. the horse is a great example that evolution sometimes ends up making very very silly creatures.
It’s survival of the genetic line that reproduces enough to stay alive. The weird shit is often related to path dependence, or is just not enough of a detriment to affect evolutionary outcomes.
If a pair of animals (humans included) can raise >2.1 offspring that have >2.1 offspring themselves, that’s potentially a functioning species. Now, humans tend not to like this minimum requirement because we frown on dying as grandparents at age 30, but it works fine from a species point of view. That’s why the answer to “But how does [animal] deal with [common issue] in the wild” is usually “it dies”
Yeah. It dies (more often after procreating a couple of times). Death is also useful at a species level because it makes space for new (potentially fitter) individuals
Horses must have plenty of good evolutionary traits, because even without human breeding they’re very successful creatures. I guess they don’t reproduce quickly, so that isn’t it. I guess they can’t shrug off injuries. They must be really good at not getting caught by predators, so they live enough to have at least a couple of foals.
I mean, I think they also evolved on steppes and open plains, where running fast is not too often super dangerous, so breaking a leg is not common enough to counter balance the advantages of being fast.
More like a couple of FOOLS! HA!