Like male cochineals, who can’t feed themselves after reaching adulthood, but are able to reproduce before dying of hunger. Evolution can be really cruel.
It’s also a local maxima trap. To shift to chewing, they would have to change both bite behaviour, and teeth structure. The intermediate stage is a lot worse than either style.
Even if chewing was the better option, it’s inaccessible from the crocs current method.
cRazi_man@europe.pub 1 day ago
“Ain’t broke” is under selling this. Evolutionarily, this is clearly the optimal solution.
AppleTea@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
“Ain’t broke” is a lot better of a description than “fittest”.
Evolution selects for the first thing that happens to work. It’ doesn’t have to work particularly well, only well enough to not die from it.
Hideakikarate@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Passing on genes is successful enough for evolution.
morto@piefed.social 1 day ago
Like male cochineals, who can’t feed themselves after reaching adulthood, but are able to reproduce before dying of hunger. Evolution can be really cruel.
cynar@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
It’s also a local maxima trap. To shift to chewing, they would have to change both bite behaviour, and teeth structure. The intermediate stage is a lot worse than either style.
Even if chewing was the better option, it’s inaccessible from the crocs current method.
fartographer@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Me: Choking on a bone
My dinner guests: stunned after I bit into the whole Thanksgiving turkey and slammed my face into the table