#fyce

Fuck Yeah, Convergent Evolution!

Hello! This is the inaugural post of my new side-blog, Fuck Yeah, Convergent Evolution (FYCE for short)!

Together we are going to go on a crazy-ass adventure through some of the completely fucking awesome body forms, survival strategies, and just generally bad-asseries that have evolved repeatedly and independently across various kingdoms, focussing mainly on the kingdom Animalia (because I don’t know shit about plants and other kingdoms, sorry friends).

Like all good friendships, we will begin with a definition:

“Convergent evolution describes the independent evolution of similar features in species of different lineages. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function, but that were not present in the last common ancestor of those groups.” [x]

Basically it’s the coolest shit ever.

It’s the equivalent of two people inventing the telephone at the same time on opposite sides of the planet, with the only thing they have in common being a spoken language and an inability to yell loud enough to talk to someone a mile away.

But why do we care?

Well, I mean, firstly, look at that little fucker above. See him? Yeah, that’s a lesser hedgehog tenrec, Echinops telfari. I bet you thought it was a hedgehog, right? I mean, look at it. It’s a spiky little motherfucker.

Yeah no it’s more closely related to a fucking manatee than a hedgehog.

Oh, my bad, that should have come with a warning about MINDFUCK.

Yeah well, that’s why you should care. Because this shit will blow your damn mind.

Also because, you know, understanding evolution is critical to understanding life, and understanding life is critical to keep it going, and that’s basically in your best interest.

So not only is convergent evolution badass, but it’s also really important. It tells us a lot about life on this awesome fucking piece of rock we call home.

Also you should care because next time you’re on a date with someone and you run out of stuff to talk about you can be like ‘let me tell you about the tenrec’, and watch as they become progressively more impressed and associate your vast knowledge directly with your sexual prowess.

I’m just sayin’; this shit is the bomb.

So come along on the FYCE adventure! It’s gonna be a WILD ride.

You can already submit shit to the blog where you can talk about a bit of convergence that you find really fucking awesome, or you can ask me to talk about it for you.

Or you can ask about some events of convergence, because that shit stimulates curiosity.