The giraffe neck evolved for sexual combat?

Re:The giraffe neck evolved for sexual combat? by rsynnott on Thursday June 16, 2022 @07:17AM (#31764693)

There's no _agency_ involved, but in general if an organism has some really weird attribute, it probably gives, or at least gave, it an advantage, because really weird attributes usually come with _disadvantages_.

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Re:The giraffe neck evolved for sexual combat? by C-x_C-f on Thursday June 16, 2022 @08:04AM (#31765039)

I don't understand. If anything I would guess that our (human) perception of "weirdness" is not a good measure of the (dis)advantages of a particular attribute. Octopuses and angler fish are weird as hell (to me at least) but they fit their biological niche pretty well. (Of course we could say that any attribute has advantages and disadvantages but at that point the claim becomes vacuous.)

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Re:The giraffe neck evolved for sexual combat? by watwut on Thursday June 16, 2022 @12:00PM (#31767566)

That is why they are rare. The trait needs way more luck to survive. That does not imply there must have been advantage. If there was clear advantage, the trait might have been more frequent.

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