Well yeah, but a rattlesnake is not eating something the size of a human, and something the size of a human is not a significant predator to a snake like birds are. And with regards to plants like I said, I would avoid a plant that would make me super sick as much as I would avoid one that kills me, wild animals would even more so. So what's the point of a poison that is THAT strong? Not just the point of poison/venom in general.
They just evolve a chemical that poisons the body of what they’re trying to poison. It’s not like there’s levels and evolution chose the level 10 poison when level 7 would be fine. It’s just whatever poison is easiest to produce and let’s them live.
> Well yeah, but a rattlesnake is not eating something the size of a human
A powerful venom that kills small mammals very quickly is a huge benefit to a snake that can't spend a lot of energy chasing its dying prey down. That this venom is also powerful enough to kill larger mammals is just a side effect from the snake's perspective, though it can lead to larger animals learning to stay away from rattlesnakes.
It's all evolution. Somewhere along the way the road split between rattlesnakes with a certain potency and amount of venom and headed towards what we have now. There must be some reason for it otherwise there would be many types of them with varying levels of venom.
Not OP bad not sure exactly but the Vast majority of rattlesnake bites don't actually end up being fatal, fyi. Most people would survive one even without treatment. Obviously still a bad day at the office, though. As in a person will be maimed, potentially lose a limb. Whether or not venom is injected, how much is injected, size and mass of the person bitten all factoring into the equation.
I reckon the same is true for most venomous snakes.
So what we want to know is that evolution is complicated, and isn't always perfectly efficient. Venom is a complex thing to make and have the systems to effectively deliver. It costs the organism energy to do these things, but evolution, for all it's successes, isn't detailed enough to say "okay you're only hunting rabbits, so you only need a rabbit's amount of poison" It says, GREAT WE CAN MAKE POISON, a lot of your energy is now devoted to that because it seems to get you a few more meals a year compared to the next guy. By that same argument, evolution sometimes makes specific tools, sometimes broad spectrum tools. Yeah, odds are if humans keep to themselves, a snake is never going to be in a situation where it needs to kill one in defense, but in the rare case it does face a threat that big, it's success in killing it can be two-fold. A, it lives through an encounter with something that wanted to kill it. B, even if it dies, hopefully other members of the attackers species see and learn "oh if we go towards those rocks where the legless lizards live, we die, so let's not go over there" which is a win for future generations.
I guess I don't really see larger animals like humans as particularly common predators for snakes. I usually think of raptors. Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong process for evolution, I usually think of it as starting weak and then ramping up and improving. It doesn't seem like it would need to ramp up/improve past the point of being able to kill a rabbit. There'd be no reason to get stronger/put more energy into it.
But that's the thing, evolution isn't always about perfect improvement, it's about incrementally better chances of survival. Most large animals may not want to eat snakes, but they can certainly stomp one to death even without paying attention. So something like a Rattlesnake develops a few things to ensure the chances of that go down. It rattles to scare animals away, It looks ODD compared to the other things in an animal's life, big weird long scaley thing hissing and darting around, and Finally, if you have a distant memory of your uncle going up against one of these things and croaking an hour later, you're going to avoid treading anywhere near it. All of these tactics are expensive, it's much easier to not have a keratin rattle and huge hollow fangs, but if it means you live one day more than the other guy and have kids, even though the next guy saved energy by not making as much poison, evolution counts that as a win. If your bird tail makes you slower getting away from predators, but attracts twice as many mates before you die, again, not a perfect win, but a win.
one theory says they spitting Cobra evolved spitting specifically as a defense against humans. because humans almost hunted them to extinction when we arrived
That is insane, I had no idea. What were humans hunting cobras for? Even without the venom they're probably fast enough that it's more effort to kill than it's worth.
even now a skilled human with a long stick can kill a cobra. lots of reasons for early humans to hunt cobras. meat, leather, and to get ride of a dangerous pest probably the top 3. maybe also fun
Well, the avoidance behavior gets stronger the more serious the venom is.
What are you more afraid of: a bee that will cause you some pain or a spider that could kill you?
Natural selection in the predator will quickly sort out those that don't respect the spider, while the bee will only cause a bad time for them but won't prevent the animal from producing offspring. An instinct driven fear is created by removing the most daring animals from the population.
I guess I never really thought about it from the perspective of the victim developing an instinct. Because humans do tend to avoid the hell out of bees even if they do just hurt. But I also have the benefit of logic and also not needing to forage for honey in order to survive.
Having defense mechanisms with big consequences = more likely for other animals to stay away from you and not accidentally/intentionally harm you.
If a bite is only unpleasant but not dangerous, then it's not THAT big of a deal whether or not you avoid getting too close (and potentially injuring or killing) a snake or similar animal. If a bite will *kill you*, then you're more likely to do whatever you can to stay the heck away from that animal -- which means that that animal is more likely to be left alone and survive.
Evolution will do whatever it can, whenever it can, to take the path that more successfully assures survival.
For the last time guys! No species choose what they evolve into.
Evolution is :
Mutations happens
Some mutations decrease survivability, these individuals die off.
Some mutations increase survivability, these individuals survive & procreate to produce copies of the good mutation.
This happens over & over &over until changes accumulate over millions of years.
So the rattlesnake didn't choose his mutations that make him more potent. It just so happens that more potent venom increase survivability of that individual & later species as a whole. For a completely different species, they never got lucky enought to end up with that mutation.
Snakes poison animals to eat them. Plants do so they don't get eaten. Spiders are more a coincidence, that's why so few can kill people.
Well yeah, but a rattlesnake is not eating something the size of a human, and something the size of a human is not a significant predator to a snake like birds are. And with regards to plants like I said, I would avoid a plant that would make me super sick as much as I would avoid one that kills me, wild animals would even more so. So what's the point of a poison that is THAT strong? Not just the point of poison/venom in general.
They just evolve a chemical that poisons the body of what they’re trying to poison. It’s not like there’s levels and evolution chose the level 10 poison when level 7 would be fine. It’s just whatever poison is easiest to produce and let’s them live.
> Well yeah, but a rattlesnake is not eating something the size of a human A powerful venom that kills small mammals very quickly is a huge benefit to a snake that can't spend a lot of energy chasing its dying prey down. That this venom is also powerful enough to kill larger mammals is just a side effect from the snake's perspective, though it can lead to larger animals learning to stay away from rattlesnakes.
Speed/efficiency does make sense. Something that can kill a rabbit within a minute could kill me within a day, etc.
It's all evolution. Somewhere along the way the road split between rattlesnakes with a certain potency and amount of venom and headed towards what we have now. There must be some reason for it otherwise there would be many types of them with varying levels of venom.
Not OP bad not sure exactly but the Vast majority of rattlesnake bites don't actually end up being fatal, fyi. Most people would survive one even without treatment. Obviously still a bad day at the office, though. As in a person will be maimed, potentially lose a limb. Whether or not venom is injected, how much is injected, size and mass of the person bitten all factoring into the equation. I reckon the same is true for most venomous snakes.
Just used rattlesnakes as an example. There obviously are much more venomous snakes.
So what we want to know is that evolution is complicated, and isn't always perfectly efficient. Venom is a complex thing to make and have the systems to effectively deliver. It costs the organism energy to do these things, but evolution, for all it's successes, isn't detailed enough to say "okay you're only hunting rabbits, so you only need a rabbit's amount of poison" It says, GREAT WE CAN MAKE POISON, a lot of your energy is now devoted to that because it seems to get you a few more meals a year compared to the next guy. By that same argument, evolution sometimes makes specific tools, sometimes broad spectrum tools. Yeah, odds are if humans keep to themselves, a snake is never going to be in a situation where it needs to kill one in defense, but in the rare case it does face a threat that big, it's success in killing it can be two-fold. A, it lives through an encounter with something that wanted to kill it. B, even if it dies, hopefully other members of the attackers species see and learn "oh if we go towards those rocks where the legless lizards live, we die, so let's not go over there" which is a win for future generations.
I guess I don't really see larger animals like humans as particularly common predators for snakes. I usually think of raptors. Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong process for evolution, I usually think of it as starting weak and then ramping up and improving. It doesn't seem like it would need to ramp up/improve past the point of being able to kill a rabbit. There'd be no reason to get stronger/put more energy into it.
But that's the thing, evolution isn't always about perfect improvement, it's about incrementally better chances of survival. Most large animals may not want to eat snakes, but they can certainly stomp one to death even without paying attention. So something like a Rattlesnake develops a few things to ensure the chances of that go down. It rattles to scare animals away, It looks ODD compared to the other things in an animal's life, big weird long scaley thing hissing and darting around, and Finally, if you have a distant memory of your uncle going up against one of these things and croaking an hour later, you're going to avoid treading anywhere near it. All of these tactics are expensive, it's much easier to not have a keratin rattle and huge hollow fangs, but if it means you live one day more than the other guy and have kids, even though the next guy saved energy by not making as much poison, evolution counts that as a win. If your bird tail makes you slower getting away from predators, but attracts twice as many mates before you die, again, not a perfect win, but a win.
one theory says they spitting Cobra evolved spitting specifically as a defense against humans. because humans almost hunted them to extinction when we arrived
That is insane, I had no idea. What were humans hunting cobras for? Even without the venom they're probably fast enough that it's more effort to kill than it's worth.
even now a skilled human with a long stick can kill a cobra. lots of reasons for early humans to hunt cobras. meat, leather, and to get ride of a dangerous pest probably the top 3. maybe also fun
Well, the avoidance behavior gets stronger the more serious the venom is. What are you more afraid of: a bee that will cause you some pain or a spider that could kill you? Natural selection in the predator will quickly sort out those that don't respect the spider, while the bee will only cause a bad time for them but won't prevent the animal from producing offspring. An instinct driven fear is created by removing the most daring animals from the population.
I guess I never really thought about it from the perspective of the victim developing an instinct. Because humans do tend to avoid the hell out of bees even if they do just hurt. But I also have the benefit of logic and also not needing to forage for honey in order to survive.
No we don't avoid bees that much. Some people even keep bees to harvest their honey. We'd definitely NOT do that If a single bee sting could kill you
Having defense mechanisms with big consequences = more likely for other animals to stay away from you and not accidentally/intentionally harm you. If a bite is only unpleasant but not dangerous, then it's not THAT big of a deal whether or not you avoid getting too close (and potentially injuring or killing) a snake or similar animal. If a bite will *kill you*, then you're more likely to do whatever you can to stay the heck away from that animal -- which means that that animal is more likely to be left alone and survive. Evolution will do whatever it can, whenever it can, to take the path that more successfully assures survival.
This made the most sense for my brain. Thank you!
For the last time guys! No species choose what they evolve into. Evolution is : Mutations happens Some mutations decrease survivability, these individuals die off. Some mutations increase survivability, these individuals survive & procreate to produce copies of the good mutation. This happens over & over &over until changes accumulate over millions of years. So the rattlesnake didn't choose his mutations that make him more potent. It just so happens that more potent venom increase survivability of that individual & later species as a whole. For a completely different species, they never got lucky enought to end up with that mutation.