Off Topic — HabitableZone

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re: I'm not a member yet.
TB — (archived)

I don't think it's giraffes stretching necks, or cutting tails off mice.

But neither is it giraffes with necks a fraction of an inch longer, and then years later, another fraction of an inch longer, until thousands of years later you have long-neck giraffes. What we may be seeing is that somewhere, a long time ago, in a herd of short-neck giraffes, suddenly one giraffe has a neck two feet longer than the others. And it passes this trait on.

This actually makes more sense, since the environment tends to change a lot faster than microscopic random mutations would be able to keep up with.

Check out this story.

I don't have the details, but I'm going to read between the lines and say that the idea that the lizards "evolved" different leg lengths is a bit misleading. I would bet that the natural population had in its normal course a few "sports" that always had longer or shorter legs, but in its normal enviroment, this made no difference, and there was no selection for it. When the environment changed, the selection was rapid.

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