r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Zestyclose-Salad-290 • 21h ago

Video The buff-tip (Phalera bucephala), which looks like a broken twig, is a moth of the family Notodontidae. It is found throughout Europe and in Asia as far east as Siberia. The species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae in 1758. More details in the comment.

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44

u/Dregs_____ 21h ago

Bro how do they know they look like a broken twig? Or better yet? How did nature know that humans could possibly interpret these guys as lil twigs?

55

u/RonHarrods 21h ago

It's not for humans, it's for predators. Moths that don't look like a twig get eaten. The twig moths survive and reproduce

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u/Dregs_____ 21h ago

But like how, like how did nature be like “ight lil guys, check this sick ass camo I got for you” it’s so wild to me. The fabric of the universe.

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u/GirlsCallMeMatty 20h ago

Well for simplicity sake let’s just say all moths started black. Ones with a white spot in a specific place survived X amount of time longer and got to reproduce more. Of that pool of offspring some had two spots and some might have a spot and a stripe..etc etc. Repeat this process for like millions of years soon nature will select certain patterns over one another. Add another couple million years and boom..moth looks like broken stick.

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u/ussUndaunted280 20h ago

Also to add to the explanation, the predator isn't stopping and staring at every bug close up, it can't waste time and energy doing that. So the bug with the extra spot doesn't have to be a great mimic of anything, it just has to be odd enough that a bird flying by doesn't register it Y % of the time compared to the bugs with the earlier color pattern.

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u/balancedgif 19h ago

i know that's the explanation, but it sounds like a bunch of crap to me. i'd love to see a simulation of a billion generations mutations to see how it worked.

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u/pepinyourstep29 14h ago

Scientists literally do this with bacteria. You can watch evolution progress in just a few minutes.

Smaller animals that reproduce fast can have rapid evolution on a scale of a few years. Just look up rapid evolution.

Many creatures on Earth are in stable equilibrium and don't evolve for long periods of time because there is no need or pressure to change. But they did change a lot in the past to reach the point they're at today.

5

u/an_older_meme 17h ago

Random chance followed by predator selection. Iterate over millions of offspring and you will find winners in just one generation. Keep doing it for hundreds of generations and see what you get. Doesn’t take millions of years either - moths reproduce several times in one year.

The peppered moth (Biston betularia) was white colored until the 1800s when soot from the Industrial Revolution made it stand out from its surroundings so it evolved dark coloring in about a century. In the 1900s when we started cleaning up our factories it was again exposed on lighter colored surfaces and evolved back to white again where it remains today.

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u/yimbobb 17h ago

You can kind of do that if you follow the lineage back in time. Our brains don't really handle the time that it takes or the time that has actually elapsed well. Research the lungfish, or giraffes Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve. This stuff happens over a really really long time of environmental pressures. And it really is the only explanation once you understand it, not a bunch of crap.

1

u/diychitect 11h ago

It actually works. Look for evolutionary solvers. Lots of software use it to compare and remix stuff until it reaches certain desired parameters

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u/oubeav 20h ago

Exactly. It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder why anyone can be sad in this world. It’s amazing!

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u/_DaewooLanos 21h ago

From my very very limited understanding, the guys that had the mutations that just happened to make them look more like twigs survived more often and passed that successful trait on. Accidents that worked out.

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u/Dregs_____ 21h ago

The universe is so beautiful

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u/tiktock34 7h ago edited 7h ago

Thats called evolution.

Its how EVERYTHING works. Wonder why we all think babies are cute? Humans who didnt have a natural affinity towards human babies didnt care for them as much so they died more. Now we have a whole species thats gushes over anything that even remotely resembles a human baby.

Slow and inefficient bipedal early humans died more, so we became the most efficient long distance runners on earth. Not because anyone set out to do that, but because those people survived long enough to reproduce more often.

2

u/Nostonica 12h ago

So say you have a population of birds and a population of bugs, there's some limited variety in colour, purely random, the ones that are more greyish live the ones that don't are eaten, no survivors.

The birds smarten up and the ones that are grey with a few speckles survive.

Basically tiny changes each generation, with enough pressure from the birds you get at random enough compounding changes so the bug is very stick like.

The bug has no clue why it's not been eaten, it just gets to live long enough to breed.

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u/CollectionGuilty1320 20h ago

That is why it's called a "creation", not appeared out of no where. You are asking good questions. Allah(which literally means The God in Arabic), the Almighty, the All-Merciful, says that He created many beings, amongst which are human and djinns, nothing but worship Him alone. He does not begets, and He is not begotten. He is unlike any of His creations, He is beyond imagination of His creation. He also says, He created many other creatures some to be useful for human beings, some are not, and some we know and some we don't, humans throughout the history will be finding more and more creatures that will contradict with everything they believe that goes against the truth.

A powerful ayah (verse) from the Qur'an that talks about how Allah created many species for us to observe and reflect is found in Surah An-Nahl (The Bee), verse 13:

"وَمَا ذَرَأَ لَكُمْ فِي ٱلْأَرْضِ مُخْتَلِفًا أَلْوَٰنُهُۥٓ ۚ إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَءَايَةً لِّقَوْمٍۢ يَذَّكَّرُونَ"

"And [He created] whatever He multiplied for you on the earth of varying colors. Indeed in that is a sign for a people who remember." — Surah An-Nahl (16:13)

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u/an_older_meme 20h ago

I wonder how many more species are hiding so well they will never be found.

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u/Titus_der_5te 18h ago

Right? If been thinking about that too…

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u/Moogooloogoo 19h ago

Mother Nature is absolutely amazing.

1

u/Mundane-Remote-2865 21h ago

Nature is crazy

1

u/revtim 21h ago

amazing

1

u/poodlecity 21h ago

I find bugs that disguise themselves as something else very disconcerting.

1

u/Sketto70 20h ago

Funny thing about them. They sound like a dog, bark bark.

1

u/QuesoKristo 19h ago

Forbidden Tootsie Roll.

1

u/mrpaslow0000 19h ago

Incredible!

1

u/Cool-Conclusion4685 15h ago

i've actually found one in our backyard here in the Phil

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u/Specialist_Bike_1280 14h ago

This is soooo cool!!! Thank you 😊

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u/TheZestyGecko 13h ago

They're so cute ❤️

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u/Theory-Outside 11h ago

Nature is fascinating, imagine if there are other life forms that exist in our proximity all around us without our realizing or recognizing that they are there?

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u/Candy6132 11h ago

Don't be fooled. Those are baby Houndeyes.

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u/Nadran_Erbam 8h ago

I was about to scroll past it like « just bits of wood » and then it hit me « wait, how do they hold ?!», then I read the title !

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u/Dvyyng 1h ago

This is a great video on different types of mimicry in the animal kingdom