Yes Sharky?
CAN I PLEASE MOVE? I’M SUFFOCATING!
*confused flatfish noises*
Submitted 3 weeks ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/75c7fd0e-f771-459c-9f2b-1da2611a0b91.jpeg
Comments
mech@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
notsure@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
...300 million years, can't sit still, smh...
aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
The perfect predator. Can’t survive out of water. What are sharks even doing??
stupidcasey@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
mech@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Protipp: To make this dish more interesting, simply bury the meat in your back yard for a year.
Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Obligate ram breathing is kind of mind-blowing. They have to swim to flow water through their gills because their gills have no muscles to flap like most fish have.
Only a few sharks are obligate ram breathers, though. Many species are able to take breaks from swimming.
mr_account@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Last time I saw this kind of comment/meme someone pointed out that dragons are usually depicted with eyes on the sides of their head. What hunts them, I wonder
Mr_Fish@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s like how in dnd lore the tarrasque, basically the biggest, scariest monster, is always depicted with big spikes on its back. Animals evolve spikes like that to ward off predators. That means something at least used to hunt tarrasques
TheOctonaut@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
Actually they develop in its juvenile state when they are vulnerable to more mundane predators but are then retained for sexual selection in adulthood.
There is only one tarrasque in existence, resulting in it taking its sexual frustration out on level 20 adventuring parties and parties that keep making fun of the lore- uh, history- of the world they grew up in.
psx_crab@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
pressanykeynow@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Adventurers…
redsand@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Bigger dragons.
Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Horny donkeys
notsure@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
...hobbits...
Crashumbc@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The Hobbits just piss them off, then humans have to deal with it…
Zerush@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
It’s not the question if the eyes on the side or in the front, it’s about the capability to be able to focusing on a stereoscopic vision to be able to calculate the distances to the prey or not. Side eyes increase the field of vision, which can be advantageous for fleeing animals, but does not exclude that predators can also use it to strategically locate themselves better in the environment. But it is true that animals with frontal vision are generally predatory.
flora_explora@beehaw.org 3 weeks ago
They also have to orient themselves in a truely 3D landscape, unlike terrestrial predators who hunt on basically a 2D plane. Birds of prey (with the exception of owls) also don’t have front-facing eyes, probably for similar reasons (and they’re stereoscopic vision also works a bit different I think with very different points of focus).
Zerush@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
There are lots of reasons to have binocular frontal vision. Redundancy, differing info for optic flow, sensitivity, reducing the frontal blind spot, compensating for retinal blind spots, higher frontal resulution, seeing around things, depth perception…
Most of there are good for predators, but predation isn’t the only reason to have them.
fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
That’s if sight is your primary sense for hunting / evasion, right?
yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
Is it actually possible for a fish-like animal to have eyes at the front (i.e. an animal with a hydrodynamic shape that spends all its time underwater)?
I feel like that’s really difficult for evolution to achieve, especially because the mouth has to go somewhere at the front too. I mean, look at where the lights of a high-speed train are placed and their shape.
Intuitively it feels easier to just put the eyes on the side. Plus it feels like there’s a lower risk of damaging them when bumping into something.
drath@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
janus2@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
was gonna snark “me before coffee” but tbh this is also me after coffee too
Hathaway@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Barreleyes get sorta close. They look up but can look forward too.
Paradachshund@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
I don’t remember what it’s called but I’m pretty sure there is one I saw once and it was kind of terrifying looking.
Saapas@piefed.zip 3 weeks ago
Is this the guy who got his bike stolen
kamen@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I see what you did there… and also there.
zeca@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Being a predator is not a property, its a relation. X is a predator of Y… but not of Z, and is a prey of V and not of W.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Axe-u-a-lee…
Gladaed@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Sharks see with their jaws, though.
Brahvim@lemmy.kde.social 2 weeks ago
Nobody gunna complain Blåhaj has an issue?
Zink@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Turtles are kind of in between with their wedge-shaped heads. They need the awareness to hide from predators, but some of them are also predators themselves or they at least snap at fruits and veggies to eat them.
Here’s my tortoise doing his best disappointed-in-you baby yoda:
And here’s the yellow belly slider locking target on to some shrimp.
But it sounds like the rules aren’t as consistent in the water, judging from other comments. Even something like an alligator snapping turtle’s eyes are no further forward than these pics.
Aljernon@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Jumping or climbing animals are an exception on the other side.
RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Are apes considered predators? I kind of thought they were just neither.
saltesc@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think that’s specific to mammals. Just off the top of my head…
Invertebrates? No. All out
Fish? No.
Birds? No.
Reptiles? No.
Amphibians? No.
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
whales and dolphins are mammals, and they have eyes on the side. Don’t think anything preys on them (at least for the full-grown ones, pretty sure baby whales are preyed on)
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Another non-predator mammal with front facing eyes: llamas.
FeatherConstrictor@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Are llamas’ eyes not side-facing? That’s what it looks like in photos to me
squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Pandas as well. Non-predator but clearly front facing eyes.
imgcat@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
and humans.
Fedizen@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Panda
Bluewing@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
They want your sweater back…
illi@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
I remember there used to be a goat on some island (now extinct) that didn’t have any predators so it evolved forward facing eyes
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
There’s also evidence that people tried to domesticate them, their hooves were trimmed.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Sloth
Auli@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
What sloths are leaf predators.
marzhall@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
In fact, you can use the chart of spider eye layouts to pretty much identify whether you’re looking at a spider who builds webs and waits or a spider who hunts:
a drawing of different spider faces to their names
Anyone with two big forward-facing eyes is probably looking around for their next meal.
KingGimpicus@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Had a bunch of wolf spiders in the last shop i worked at as a welder. They have eye shine like cats and alligators. It was always easy to tell the wolf spiders from black widows even behind a dusty welding machine because you can see the little wolf spider eyes looking back at you.
monotremata@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Also crabs. I mean, their eyes are often on stalks and more mobile than mammalian eyes, and they’re compound, so they have a very wide field of view, but they’re still often basically in front, and they do apparently provide depth cues for hunting thanks to this.
www.jneurosci.org/content/38/31/6933
It also occurred to me to look up about dragonflies, and it seems they mostly hunt dorsally (which is a pretty viable option if you’re flying). BUT I found this article about Damselflies, which notes that they rely on binocular overlap and line up their prey in front of them. Which is pretty cool.
www.sciencedirect.com/…/S0960982219316641
Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Those are some wild gamepad layouts
pjwestin@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Birds of prey absolutely have their eyes positioned on the front of their heads. It’s most obvious in owls, since they have the largest eyes and wider faces, but all of them have front-facing eyes for binocular vision.
Image
Typhoon@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Most primates eat fruit or leaves, but have forward facing eyes because they need depth perception for climbing/jumping, not for hunting.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Squirrels have eyes on the sides of their heads and they’re pretty fucking good and climbing and jumping. Next theory …
trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Besides humans, aren’t most apes not prey animals?
Starski@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
What do you mean by prey animals? Animals that prey on others or are you calling them prey themselves? And just because an animal is a predator doesn’t mean there aren’t larger predators that will kill and eat them. Ultimately most apes are omnivores who eat fruit and berries, along with leaves and other shit, but will eat meat and have been known to prey on animals, yet it’s not their main source of food. They’re not apex predators but they aren’t actively prey.
imgcat@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
including humans.
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Bats also have forward facing eyes I think (correct me on this please!), but most of them aren’t carnivorous. They eat fruits and bugs and stuff.
illi@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Well, if they hunt bugs, they are predators, no?
LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
I would assume insects would be evolutionarily similar to other types or prey.
Fedizen@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Convergent evolution has more to do with environment and trophic structure than it has to do with lineage. Any animal that can produce a complex eye can have similar evolutionary pressure given similar environments unless there’s some other stronger pressure.
Image
Cattail@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Maybe it doesn’t apply ocean animals. Like they would want to see both above and below for their environment, but I’d also think for predators it would be slightly more front facing
k0e3@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
A lot of non mammals other organs to help them perceive. Even aquatic mammals like whales have echolocation. That’s probably why the front facing rule doesn’t apply universally to all animals.
Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Aye-Ayes and Tarsiers have very forward facing eyes, yet eat mostly gruvs in trees.