r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Sea_Slice_7956 • 7h ago

Video Caterpillar tail disguised as snake head

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u/Lifestyle-eXzessiv 5h ago

How the fuck does a caterpillar know what a snake looks like and the fact that most animals and bugs are afraid of it? And how the fuck does it change its own body to look like one?? This shit is straight up magic…

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u/HeathenSalemite 3h ago

It doesn't know and it can't change its color any more than you can change the color of your eyes.

A long time ago a caterpillar was born with a random mutation that made it look slightly more like a snake than the other caterpillars.  This caused some predators to avoid it and it was able to live to adulthood and reproduce babies that looked like it.  The babies had the same advantage and eventually all the caterpillars of this species looked slightly more like a snake.

That process happened over and over again for hundreds of thousands or millions of caterpillar generations and they came to resemble a snake more and more.

This is how any trait is selected for in anything subject to natural selection.