Re: The And and the Blade of Grass
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In fact, if a spider were never put into a position to have to freeze, it wouldn't. It only freezes under certain conditions. How does it learn what those conditions are is what I want to know.
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It doesn't. Avoiding detection is a major'trick' used to avoid danger. There is no evolutionary difference between being speckled and being still. Ancestors that didn't freeze under those conditions didn't leave many offspring, just as the ones without camoflage.
Sometimes it hard to appreciate how far back in the chain some of the behaviors or traits can trace their origins. I have no idea if it's true but it wouldn't surprise me to discover that single cells in a pond may have evolved to stop cillating when pressure waves of a certain mix are sensed.
Millions of generations passing through the selection filters can pull of some neat stuff.
luckyme
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