But I cannot accept the Snake of the Lake having hands. Snakes very intentionally got rid of their hands in evolutionary time and it just feels like it’s breaking a rule
It's not really a choice it was a genetic mutation. Also snakes do have a gene to grow legs it just grows penises instead so if it is a choice it is a weird one
We frequently use words like “choice” to speak about things like evolutionary dynamics because they make the talk more interesting. It’s a deliberate misuse of the phrase in some ways, but it implies that natural selection ended up canalizing snakes into a specific evolutionary pathway - one instead of many possible others - based on innumerable factors but all being by definition locally (in time and place) more or less favorable.
I appreciate the input and thank you for the clarification for readers - although I don’t imagine many people thought there was some Ur-snake who said “fuck these legs.”
there are legless lizards like the slow worm
Yes indeed, but they are rare and I’m just saying that we should embrace them for their choices.
Well, that might be a bit much, especially for the venomous ones. We should respect their choices, and it’s obviously worked out for them.
I do love the boa constrictors with the occasional random tow, though. It’s like a Hemingway cat, but for snakes.
It's not really a choice it was a genetic mutation. Also snakes do have a gene to grow legs it just grows penises instead so if it is a choice it is a weird one
We frequently use words like “choice” to speak about things like evolutionary dynamics because they make the talk more interesting. It’s a deliberate misuse of the phrase in some ways, but it implies that natural selection ended up canalizing snakes into a specific evolutionary pathway - one instead of many possible others - based on innumerable factors but all being by definition locally (in time and place) more or less favorable.
I appreciate the input and thank you for the clarification for readers - although I don’t imagine many people thought there was some Ur-snake who said “fuck these legs.”
For the record, I am an evolutionary biologist.
quite literally they grow penises in their place which was the weirdest fact I learned today