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> But it still poses the question: What makes the crab shape so successful that species keep trying to emulate it? That's not how evolution works. Survival of the fittest isn't about aspiration. It's what's left when the fittest are left standing.
We've changed the silly title (edit: I meant the article's own linkbaity title) to a more interesting sentence from the article body.
To pun this out — such shellfish animals end up so crabby in the end.
One of the things I love about the way Eons cover topics is how they don't just focus on what we know, but also how we know, who figured things out, and what we got wrong along the way.
Can't endorse their style of science journalism enough.
What can they actually discover? 10 legs good? But how about 12? [1]
> The crab with the longest legs is the Japanese spider crab. It’s not related to spiders, despite its name. When extended, its legs can be as long as 12 feet.
Now there's a nightmare for you.
[1] https://www.reference.com/pets-animals/many-legs-crab-4c30fb...
Even more wild to me is that saber-toothed cat-like predators evolved seven separate times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saber-toothed_predator
The interesting part about it is whether they represent a local minima that optimization gets stuck in - i.e. the returns on building yourself an exoskeleton keep increasing the more exoskeleton you add, so once you chance onto that path every other direction then "more exoskeleton" is a net negative for the next generation.
> But it still poses the question: What makes the crab shape so successful that species keep trying to emulate it? That's not how evolution works. Survival of the fittest isn't about aspiration. It's what's left when the fittest are left standing.
> But it still poses the question: What makes the crab shape so successful that species keep trying to emulate it? That's not how evolution works. Survival of the fittest isn't about aspiration. It's what's left when the fittest are left standing.
Convergent evolution in similar environments is fascinating; isn't it?