Thursday 21 May 2020

Metamorphosis


Yesterday a dragonfly was flying ahead of my bike for about half a mile. I thought it had adopted me. If there's one thing that could make me question my atheism, it's creatures that start out in one form, turn themselves in a goo and then emerge from a pupa in a totally different form (although dragonflies only go through a nymph stage).


How the hell did metamorphosis evolve? If it was trial and error, then think of the number of dead ends there must have been before something emerged from a goo that was even viable, let alone supremely adapted for a life on the wing.


1 comment:

Steve Borthwick said...

Here's a good read on the subject.. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2019.0070