Not a lot of time to wax on about this National Geographic article but I wanted to share it. I wonder about the ties between this genus of caterpillar and caddisflies. Really cool stuff!
From the PNAS paper about which the NatGeo article was written:
"... a molecular phylogeny ... reveals that this amphibious lifestyle is an example of parallel evolution and has arisen from strictly terrestrial clades at least three separate times in the genus starting more than 6 million years ago, before the current high islands existed...
..Why and how Hyposmocoma, an overwhelmingly terrestrial group, repeatedly evolved unprecedented aquatic species is unclear..."
From the PNAS paper about which the NatGeo article was written:
ReplyDelete"... a molecular phylogeny ... reveals that this amphibious lifestyle is an example of parallel evolution and has arisen from strictly terrestrial clades at least three separate times in the genus starting more than 6 million years ago, before the current high islands existed...
..Why and how Hyposmocoma, an overwhelmingly terrestrial group, repeatedly evolved unprecedented aquatic species is unclear..."
That makes it even more bizarre, in my opinion.
They must have evolved really fast sense it’s in Hawaii (a relatively new island) or maybe it has a relative on a continent
ReplyDeleteIt sure looks an awful lot like a caddisfly. It also says on wiki-P that this group eats snails.
ReplyDeleteBut its adult forum is completely terrestrial?
ReplyDelete