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“Why is there no giraffe-sized chickens” Because they got wiped out by a space rock

People : where's the laser zebras?! Evolution : crabs, take it or leave it.

The hills and valleys representation of evolution is actually an incredible way of visualizing it

Some hairless ape: why don't we have giraffe-sized chickens? Dinosaurs: am I a joke to you?

"If humans could fly, we'd consider it exercise and never do it" - Ron Swanson

"Nature is infinitely creative" - Keep creating crabs...

actually, microscopic organisms have a more "mechanical" way of transport and a lot of biochemical process resemble large scale machines.

Excuses, excuses... I want my zebras with laser turrets!

Giraffe size chicken isn’t remotely impossible, that’s a T-rex

If we all start actively pretending that large arms are super attractive, and seek mates with massive arms, that would be the first step towards a wing evolution.

“You don’t just get something because it’s cool” My financial decisions beg to differ.

I had the EXACT same experience with Return to Oz and the wheelers when I was a kid - the wheeler looking through the keyhole absolutely terrified me

5 millions years later Laser Zebra: Well guess what.

When I first learned about evolution, it was from Pokémon, I was 4 and I sat in a corner trying to evolve. Edit: I only believed evolution works like in Pokémon until I was 8 or 9.

I remember my grandparents having a Trabant. It was loud, stinky, had a tendency to fall apart and if you hit a cobblestone road, it would severely hamper your reproduction capabilities for a few days. Still the flexibility compared to the horse cart we often took to the market at weekends was superb. You also had no heater, so we used to put one of those propane gas canisters on the backseat with a heating unit on it. Oh and the doors stopped working towards the end, so we had to enter/leave through the window. Yeah... "Good" old times, eh? Nowadays even on the countryside every family has at least 2 cars, often more and you even see stuff like Teslas from time to time. Among a lot of tractors and the occasional horse/dog cart.

Worth mentioning that nature makes wheels, or at least rotors at the molecular scale, such as a flagellum, like a propellor for a protist, or the famous "waterwheel driven by protons", ATP Synthase.

I dont even want wings man i just want the lumbar spine to be able to support us

A lovely way to sum this up would be to state that “evolution is lazy”. Evolution will solve a problem in the easiest way possible. And will never go out of its way to make a species superior.

im a simple guy, i see zebra with laser, i click. this means there is a possibility of mermaids existing

the landscape graph was such a good visual representation

**Looks at the thumbnail** **looks at my pet Zebra** Me: "it's ok Gerald, don't listen to him, your lasers will grow in a few years"

Birds: "If only we had hands instead of these useless wings, so we could build laser cannons."

"We're still not gonna grow wings though." Me: Drinks Redbull

It’s been a really long time since the last time i learned that many new things with so many really great explanations

Meanwhile in another multiverse zebrazooka just started their world war 9.

Europeans: "You don't use wheels? You know, those round thingies that spin on axles?" Mesoamericans: "Oh we put those on our toys for children"

Best way I've seen someone explaining square cube law. The volume increases at a higuer rate in comparison to area. It's possible to create a relation between the increments, but impossible directly between volume and area, as the area/volume ratio doesn't exist since the units differ.

4:40 "please leave" lol this is gold

"Why haven't Zebras evolved laser turrets to fend off lions?" FINALLY, SOMEONE IS ASKING THE REAL QUESTIONS!

Einstein: "You can't teach a fish to climb a tree." Mudskipper: *climbs tree Einstein: ....

'when you're the best, why try harder?' - crabs

5:36 I need this as a poster!

I read this somewhere. Evolution isn’t about the “best” or even the “good”, it’s about the “good enough”

"thats why its impossible" 200000 years later, Zebras: whanna bet

I actually was about to comment about the mulefas. Glad to see the reference and they actually look even weirder than I had imagined when I read the books.

Well, I suppose it's time to lock a zebra in a laser room for a couple million years.

when people say they want wings, i don't think anyone is thinking about turning their arms in to wings but having wings come out of their back.

i have a bachelors degree in biology and I was never taught about that "can only go uphill" thing in my four frickin years. thanks IOTBS lol

The thumbnail got me lmao now I am here but this was an enjoyable video

But I WANT MY LASER ZEBRA!!!

Looks at thumbnail “Hey Ferb, I know what we’re going to do today!”

Very disappointing, they totally missed out on "sharks with frickin laser beams on their heads"

TL;DR, I explain how evolution could actually produce lazer zebras (2nd paragraph if low on time or patience). I can appreciate that answering all questions pertaining to the abilities of evolution with the appropriate degree of nuance is no small task. This is why I have always found it useful to employ what I call 'conjecturifics' or 'conjecturific language;' language denoting an appropriate degree of uncertainty, such as "perhaps" when you are giving one two possible explanations where you have no inclinations, "I suspect" when it is your prefered explanation but not by a wide margin, 'I am confident' when it *is* prefered by a wide margin (ideally for good reason), etc. You actually did a pretty decent job of this, but I have an objection. When discussing the 'zebras acquiring lazer weapons' being impossible because of the transitionary stages being less fit, you assume the only path is one where components of the weapon would be acquired one at a time, and the weapon would only be useful upon completion. In reality, this is not the only path. There is the evolutionary path taken, for example, by the camera / eye. The eye started as a bit of light-sensitive brain tissue. This enabled early acquatic animals to determine when a predator was approaching, because a small amount of light was penetrating their outer layers - just as we can still see some of the light when we cover a flashlight with our hands - and this light was now being obscured. Over time, the tissue covering this light sensitive brain-matter was lost, leaving these early eyes exposed. Over time, that brain tissue specialized for photon detection exclusively. Over time, eyes changed shape into a chamber (from which the word "camera" is derrived) with a pinhole through which light from different point sources would be mapped to specific photon receptors. Over time, eyes developed shutters, or irises, to change the size of the pinhole, enabling animals to focus on things near or distant. Zebras could evolve bio-luminescence, as so many animals have, if their environment changed to grant them an advantage for doing so. This bioluminescence could evolve into stronger bursts of light if, for example, their environment consisted of a single source of nutrients which were stunned when struck with a burst of light. Competition between this predator zebra and this prey animal might result in the prey becoming resistant to increasingly strong bursts of light, and zebras producing increasingly powerful bursts of light. There. That is how evolution could actually produce lazer zebras. I very much doubt this will ever happen, but it is not 'impossible in evolution.'

Local optima is actually a great way to think about addictions. It's difficult to quit your addictions because you have to go down a lesser peak to find you pathway to a higher one.

Zebras could use a small glowing red spot to attract mates, then use a low wattage laser to distract lions (think laser pointer and cat), and then eventually power up the laser into a defensive weapon.

Fun fact: Even if you are in bad shape or perhaps overweight, you are automatically one of the best long distance runners on the planet. Unless you aren't human, in which case your reading this is impressive.

No energy weapon evolution like lasers. Electric Eels: Am I joke to you?

I love this channel so much.

"Survival of the Fittest" should be renamed to "Survival of the Good Enough"

I, for one, welcome our new evolutionary superior Laser Zebra overlords.

I feel like this is different for us because we get to decide to a large extent which traits get passed on due to most people being able to reproduce regardless of potential harmful traits. Hell we literally did it with dogs, food, bacteria, etc.

Wow! I didn't expected reference to "his dark material" here!

I think the flying fish is one such example of evolution taking it up a notch

Humans: Why hasn't evolution made zebras with Lasers. Evolution: You idiot I evolved you so you can make those things, Have you forgotten You are part of me?

With the same logic that rattet snakes "rattle parts" work, animals should be able to grow wheels. And if muscles, or other movable tissue, os correctly positioned inside they would be able to roll

*Me, an African watching this video* Under my breath: "Oh good, they don't know about the laser Zebras..."

Let's just stare at bacterial flagella for a few hours and appreciate the one biological motor that does exist.

Dodos going extinct is the top 1 saddest death in anime

So this is how evo firecracker came out 👏 👏 I now know that goblins will soon start shooting lasers

mulefa are probably my favorite part of His Dark Materials. They look so different from us yet they blend so naturally.

"Why are there no giraffe-sized chickens?" Before about 66 million years ago, there were.

You know I've never thought about human made technology like cars or wheels being under evolutionary pressure before, but that's totally what happens huh? It's why we don't use flip phones or beepers anymore, they were out competed by smart phones. It's a pretty interesting way to think about it

"Absolute unit" to describe the alien elephant is so funny

I like the ways you explain.

Another factor you didn't mention is "brittleness" (I think a term coined by Dawkins) - your hands and my hands are not exactly the same shape, but we both have hands that are ok as hands. A wheel cannot get very far from being perfectly circular before it is essentially useless - my collection of slightly warped bike wheels attests to that. So quite apart from the issue of damage-in-use, the peak that they sit on in evolutionary space has almost vertical sides - too steep to plausibly climb. All that said, there are microbes that use what may be called wheels or propellers, because the physics at small scale gives evolution a slightly different landscape to play on.

Ok, so why is my body evolving a fat belly for me? That's clearly a loss in fitness. :(

My very first look at this channel and i'm welcome with "why tigers don't have wheels and lasers" followed by "it's okay to be smart" Grandpa once told that smart people will never say that they're smart , he'll always be right

In your examples of odd-numbered limbed animals the extra is the tail. Is a tail a limb? It's part of the spine, the trunk, not a branch off of the trunk. Since it's usually added on beyond the pelvis I suppose it still counts as an appendage. What's the name of that thing on the top of corn stalks?

"Are snakes one limbed animals?" Please no. I didn't want to think about that today, and now I can't get it out of my head.

You totally forgot to mention one curcially important thing on fitness: Fitness isn't determined by your survival rate, but by your reproduction. So going for something like Laser Zebras, it would be possible that a Zebra lives long enough to mate and give birth with a specific trait that may or may not lead to a laser organ in the long term. As long as their offspring can succsessfully mate and give birth again, the trait can be spread, solidified and further evolve over time. That's basically the reason, why hammer toes (hallux valgus) exist in humans or why we haven't outbred cancer or chorea huntington. The genes that lead to those phenotypes do so a bit after our reproduction age. People with the genetic dispositon for cancer or chorea huntington, f.e., can successfully produce offspring, as the "diseases" occur in their higher years (mid-thirties onwards). Hallux Valgus, with is a condition in which your biggest toe moves inward in a painful process, which may leave you unable to walk, if not treated, begins mostly after the menopause (or around the same time in men, but I think it's more common in women, correct me, if I'm wrong). But the trait can pass on and actually is about to solidify in certain lineages, as it doesn't lower your reproduction rate. And in this case, one offspring (or a set of non-phenotypically coding genes or a heterozygotous inheritance like albinism f.e.) is all evolution needs in the long run. Strange hands, which can become wings, however, won't necessarily lower your survival rate (as humans tend to keep those alive, who are close to them. Especially when they are helpful in other ways), but I can guess it would lower their reproduction rate, because how many people would mate with someone with bat-hands? Or as my biology professor once put it: Humans love strawberries. If there where one person to have strawberry-shaped, -colored and -tasting ears, it would have major sucess finding mates. So there would be some children with strawberry-ears, who in turn would have big success in finding mates and some generations onward, strawberry-ears would be a perfectly normal trait in humans. Evolution isn't logical, it isn't goal-oriented, but pretty situational and sometimes astonishingly complex.

Was convinced for a moment that you had said "pangolins" as Benedict Cumberbatch trying to say "Penguins". I can't believe he narrated an entire nature documentary about Penguins but can't say "Penguins"... amazing!

i'll prove every single of these wrong by evolving them on me

“You can’t evolve anything that reduces your fitness” Babirusa: hold my beer

*Fish with propellers is impossible* 200 millions years in the future: Flish.

This is super fun, because I'm trying to mentally justify how these things could evolve 😂

Loving this show

I swear the moment you said "aren't dolphins three-limbed animals?" my brain broke

Still waiting for a legit dragon to evolve itself to reality

I think I know how to solve the disconnected wheel issue. A lot of animals grow things that fall off or get discarded. For example species of deer shed their horns, sharks lose and regrow teeth, reptiles molt. A wheeled animal could be possible if the wheel starts as a connected growth but after a certain point falls off. The key is that the wheel is grown around a central structure so once it does detatch it can spin around that.

I'm actually surprised some kind of aquatic creature hasn't created a laser yet? Like a low power series of bio luminescent organs focused by transparent lenses or membranes.

the phrase “forbidden phenotypes” is just so funny to me

People for evolution of human wings: give evolution a reason; Make floor actual lava!

5:16 this is what I though of when I saw the video title and thumbnail. what kind of environment would be necessary for zebras to develop lasers?

Very interesting, a bit more subtle but a zebra could evolve a defensive horn .like a rhino, also used for unearthing roots for food.

"plant eating snakes" I thought he was talking about plants that eat snakes lol. that would be dope

Wow... Nicely Explained ❤

What is impossible in evolution? Nothing. You only need the correct evolution stone and a couple of good TM's.

we just need to keep playing "the floor is lava" this will be the selection pressure that we have to adapt to AND WE WILL FLY

Me and my homies: "why animals have no wheels???" The smart guy: "well, to start you should know that in Mesopotamia they used to have chariots..."

I remember renting the return to oz as a kid and thinking "this is not even remotely close to what I was expecting" haha

i reckon you could get natural wheels on an animal by some process where the wheel grows as hard dead skin such as nails, hair etc then because it's dead it falls off the axel, thus being able to turn on it... but you're right about it not necessarily being a useful trait especially as tarmac roads are hardly natural occurrences

Alternate title: Why there are no real-life pokemon. WHERE'S MY POKEMON, EVOLUTION???

Actually, from what I've heard, they've found out our eyes actually benefit from the nerves routing backwards. There are fiberoptic like filaments that filter out a lot of the blue light that tends to dominate on the land. In the ocean you don't want to reduce the amount light because you take all you can get.

Don’t care to watch the video, but just wanted to comment the thumbnail is one of the best thumbnails I’ve ever seen 😂

Return to Oz was awesome! I loved that movie, but the hall of the heads where the witch switched them was “too scary” according to my parents so they cut that part out of my tape.

"Hey smart people, Joe here" - JOE I NEED THIS PLEASE

1:49 I like the idea of a young Joe having nightmares wherein he sleep-talks and says “No wheelies! Biology doesn’t allow for members of the animal kingdom to have wheels. It’s scientifically impossible! Ah!”

8:00 In certain cases, you *can* move downhill. If there are changes to the animal's habitat that make certain features useless, they can begin to de-evolve, or evolve into something else, as it is more efficient to not grow the unneeded features, or to turn them into something useful.

Nice reference to the best book ever