/sci/ - Science & Math

>>10587758
>What force of nature just makes an insect take the shape of a fucking dead leaf???
Predation.

>>10587773
Tons of bugs get preyed on.

What made this one suddenly change its body to mimic a tree leaf specifically?

>>10587777
>suddenly

The current historical theory is that it happened over a long period of time. There are lots of variations and the ones that are more leaf like survive.

I admire your skepticism desu

Its not that hard to understand. But I gave up trying to explain the process. People who dont get it usually have great difficulty in conceptualizing immensely long passages of time and understanding things like incremental shifts in the characteristics of a population over many generations

TLDR. If you dont get it with what you already should know, then most likely you never will.

>>10587758
>There was a population of bugs with some that look like leaves more than others
>Predators eat the ones that look the least like leaves because they're easiest to spot
>The bug population then looks more like leaves with some more than others
>The predators who can't spot the difference between a bug and a leaf die due to starvation
>The predator population can now see the less leaf-like bugs and eat them
>The resulting bug population looks even more like leaves
>This creates a feedback loop of more leafy bugs and more leaf savvy predators
>The current result is OPs picture

>>10587780
>>10587782
When I say "suddenly" i don't mean it happened literally over night you utter twats.

>>10587782
>>10587787
And how do you explain the very first leaf bug looking like a leaf then?

You're not exactly giving any concrete answers.

Its like when people can't explain how a snake has a tail that looks like a spider, and not only that it KNOWS how to use it bait.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFjoqyVRmOU

>>10587758
Intelligence.
A reflection, of perception.

>>10587796
>And how do you explain the very first leaf bug looking like a leaf then?
It could start with mutations that slightly change a bug's appearance as it develops. Such as a green pigment, or a wider flatter body. These changes would be slight but over thousands of generations these new genes from the mutation would get more and more exaggerated.

This is similar to how humans breed animals to get traits that they want. Example, the first munchkin cats just had shorter than average legs due to a mutation or a quirk of genetics but after many generations of selectively breeding them their legs can be made much shorter.

A similar process happens in nature. Instead of humans making the selection its a complex set of selective pressures that come from nature.

you live in a red forest

you have a red bug, a blue bug, and a green bug
the bugs all looks like leaves, twigs, or insects
over time, all the blue and green bugs get eaten because they stick out
then the bugs that look insects because they can't blend in

you're left with red bugs that look like leaves and twigs that reproduce and the only ones that get eaten are the ones that stick out for whatever reason (wrong shade of red, or they look more like an insect than a leaf)

>>10587758
There are 500k individuals.
Sort them by how much they look like a dead leaf.
The first 10k of that list survive and reproduce, creating 20k descendants.
The last 10k mostly get eaten before reproducing, and only leave 500 descendants.

Fast forward this for hundreds of generation, and then everyone looks like a leaf.

>>10587790
You're a retarded faggot. Science can't wait that!

LOL

>>10587841
huh?

>>10587758
Generations of struggle guided by God-given intuition.

>>10587843
>huh?
You (You) are a retarded (mentally and intellectually underdeveloped) faggot (homosexually oriented man who enjoys the feeling of men's cocks in his mouth and anus).

>>10587849
huh?

>>10587843
>>10587851
LOL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution

I wonder if this leaf bug has DNA to assume other shapes or colors that can easily be toggled on/off like the pepper moth when it's environment is changed over multiple generations.

>>10587777
>leaf specifically

Why not a leaf?

Some others by chan ce drifted towards looking like other things. But

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>>10587868

>>10587886

>>10587890

>>10587893
And it works both ways...

At some point, something has had it away with a leaf

>>10587758
Looks like we found Canada's national bug.

A fucking leaf.

No caterpillar to eat here, just a blop of bird poop/

I is danjrus snek.

>>10587758
Natural selection selected for resemblance to the environment?

Kinda obvious.

>>10588065
Get on my level, I am two snakes.

>>10588070
why is that stick all fuzzy?

>>10587758
>Insects don't look like leaf
>Keep getting eaten, in many cases before even getting to reproduce
>Eventually some insects are born that looks slightly more like their surroundings than others
>Those insects survive and reproduce more than the others
>Predators get better at spotting them and start catching them too though
>Eventually some of those insects are born that look even more like their surroundings
>Those insects survive and reproduce more than the others
>Repeat a shit ton of times
>Insects now look almost perfectly identical to leaves
It's the same premise behind why you see antibiotic resistant bacteria warnings in the news all the time. When you start killing off biological organisms (e.g. like what people do when they take antibiotics any time they feel sick) you kick off a process whereby there will eventually emerge some random new trait that allows a few organisms to survive, and pretty soon you end up with nothing but the organisms with that new trait because you're killing off all their competition.
Killing promotes the eventual emergence and reinforcement of new forms that can get around killing. Another analogy would be how prison teaches prisoners to be less gullible and better able to take care of themselves. If you go into prison weak and easily taken advantage of you're probably going to learn sooner or later to stop being that way. It's like natural selection except for personality traits instead of organisms.

>>10588101
I'd say its more likely that they co-evolved along with the vegetation that makes up their surroundings.

>What force of nature just makes an insect take the shape of a fucking dead leaf???

The actual answer is that an ancestor within that specific insect family was born with genetic defects that differed from the norm in physiology but happened to be much more adapted to hiding itself amongst the leaves. Because of this that ancestor was able to pass off its genes more than others.

thicc thighs save lives

>>10587777
Took a long time and pure chance. There is no mechanism. Mutations are random. If they weren't, then all species would exhibit such features.

>>10587796
recognition isn't a certain process, sometimes even a bug that looks nothing like a leaf can be mistaken for a leaf by a predator having a brain fart. the more a bug looks like a leaf, the more often it will be mistaken for one. it doesn't have to suddenly look exactly like a leaf, just resemble one more slightly more than the other guy.

natural selection is simple to understand.
I couldn't imagine how much of a brainlet you would have to be to not understand it.

>>10587758
this has got to be one of the easier things to explain
>camouflage