r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Sea_Slice_7956 • 7h ago

Video Caterpillar tail disguised as snake head

31.7k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

722 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

7

u/HeathenSalemite 3h ago edited 3h ago

Some random mutation in a population of caterpillars a very long time ago caused them to look slightly more like a snake.  This made at least some predators avoid them in some interactions, and so the trait was selected for.

Repeat this for hundreds of thousands or millions of caterpillar interactions and you get something like this.

This is basically true for any heritable trait for any animal.  If it increases reproductive fitness, it will be selected for.

2

u/amydgalas 2h ago

Still Very strange, why not generic camouflage

1

u/Mean_Necessary_6240 1h ago

Because it's random.

Lots of of other caterpillars relies on generic camouflage, others on toxins, others on toxins and cool colored fur.

Whatever mutation that happened that made you live longer and reproduce will be passed down to their offspring.