- Trash Panda ( @raccoon@lemmy.ml ) English72•4 months ago
It’s cute that homeboy thinks it’s learning.
- nossaquesapao ( @nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br ) English36•4 months ago
People tend to have a really hard time understanding evolution, and attribute human characteristics to it.
- modifier ( @modifier@lemmy.ca ) English18•4 months ago
Which I think is really fine for casual internet conversation. It’s not even attributing human characteristics, just mis-characterizing what is happening. But it’s a useful way to short hand it, especially if the discussion is more about the result than the process.
- Zagorath ( @Zagorath@aussie.zone ) English13•4 months ago
Yeah, there’s absolutely nothing about the wording of this post that indicates they actually believe “it’s learning” as opposed to just using quite a common shorthand. Calling that out is the laziest, most bad-faith type of “um, actually” behaviour IMO.
- Ephera ( @Ephera@lemmy.ml ) English6•4 months ago
Personally, I’m not a fan of these shorthands, because I’ve seen many people (including me when growing up) make some pretty glaring logical errors based on them. And particularly with creationists also existing, I’m really wary of people thinking it’s an intelligent process.
- 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️ ( @Kolanaki@yiffit.net ) English8•4 months ago
Evolution is best described as “survivorship bias.”
- rockerface 🇺🇦 ( @rockerface@lemm.ee ) English5•4 months ago
Biologically powered bruteforcing
- Xantar ( @Xantar@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English52•4 months ago
I mean if you kill your pollinators you’re not going to reproduce, so that makes sense the genes survived.
- tigeruppercut ( @tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip ) English23•4 months ago
Pitcher plants do the same thing
They have these really unique looking flowers too
- qjkxbmwvz ( @qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website ) English8•4 months ago
Then there’s the pitcher plant that isn’t really carnivorous, but relies on excrement…it’s not so much a pitcher as a toilet: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepenthes_lowii
- troybot [he/him] ( @troybot@midwest.social ) English5•4 months ago
Ah so that’s why Victreebel is a poison type
Damn, I had no idea these flowered. I could never keep them alive either.
- Wugmeister ( @ThisIsAManWhoKnowsHowToGling@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English18•4 months ago
Also, the energy to make that flower is an enormous strain on the plant. Usually, growing that flower causes most or all of the carnivorous leaves to die, and therefore often growing that flower spells the death of the plant.
- maeries ( @maeries@feddit.de ) English2•4 months ago
Interesting. I would imagine that the plant has a lot of energy since insects are way more rich in nutrients than light and water, no?
- Wugmeister ( @ThisIsAManWhoKnowsHowToGling@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English3•4 months ago
The specific nutrients it gets from the bugs are nitrogen and phosphorus, which plants normally absorb through their roots. It evolved carnivory to compensate for the poor soil in its native habitat instead of developing its roots like other plants in the area, so it can’t pick up the nutritional slack with its atrophied roots.
In addition, every time a leaf closes and tries to digest what it caught, it uses a lot of energy. Flowering always is a big strain on a small plant, no matter what species, so when this strain is introduced the number of carnivorous leaves becomes a difficult risk/reward calculation, and plants are not known for cleverness.
- GiveMemes ( @GiveMemes@jlai.lu ) English1•4 months ago
That’s not really how it works. Going from one food chain level to another you lose about 90% of the energy like:
Plants - photosynthesize 100% of solar energy available
Herbivores - eat the plants, losing about 90% of the total energy in the process of breaking it down and making it usable.
Carnivores - eat another animal, losing another 90% aka (1% of total energy)
Plus, consider that photosynthesis is capable of creating all the sugars and that we can convert sugars into fats and proteins and stuff using biological processes (this is essentially why plants need nitrogen and phosphorous to grow, but the generally get that from the soil and really don’t need a lot.
- OpenStars ( @OpenStars@discuss.online ) English8•4 months ago
Or if that’s too subtle:
😘
- danhab99 ( @danhab99@programming.dev ) English5•4 months ago
I know carnivores plants are plants, but I never really thought of a venus flytrap’s flower.
- belated_frog_pants ( @belated_frog_pants@beehaw.org ) English5•4 months ago
Cute story fren, but natural selection isnt a willful choice by the organism 💕
- Chef_Boyardee ( @Chef_Boyardee@lemm.ee ) English5•4 months ago
I had an idea once to make a travel pack sized blanket for air travel.
Venus Flight Wraps
- flora_explora ( @flora_explora@beehaw.org ) English1•4 months ago
Obligatory crime pays but botany doesn’t mention. There is this really cool episode of a huge carnivorous plant collection: