Like why aren’t lions total roid monsters if only the strongest male gets to breed the females?
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Okay that’s a first for me. I have an answer to that, I have the name for that… but not in English.
I found the wikipedia article explaining the notion in full details, but that’s a French page (Baguette represent: bonjour!), and apparently no English version of this page exists.
Wow, a first O_o
Anyway. What you describe is an actual “black spot” of evolution, something that sometimes happens. Sexual competition leading males into evolutionary dead ends after a few millions of years. It’s when females have exclusive control over which male partner they may choose, and unfortunately, the males end up trapped in a contest in which the #1 criteria is counter-productive for them individually, but not counter-productive enough in the very short term.
The best example of all time is the Megaloceros Giganteus, a giant elk who lived across Europe and went extinct half a million years ago (it’s like yesterday), they had badass giant XXXXXL antlers. So huge they had great difficulty surviving with them above their head.
The French name is “hypertélie”, the French wikipedia page is “caractère hypertélique”: [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caract%C3%A8re_hypert%C3%A9lique](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caract%C3%A8re_hypert%C3%A9lique)
I’ll let you throw it into google translate.
Without trying to sound smarmy, I ask you to imagine a group of “hunters and gatherers,” where the hunting is incredibly poor, and survival can depend a lot more upon the gathering. (I think there is more and more evidence to support the success of this strategy).
Let me also ask you to consider individuals who may not be so good at the hunting, but they are emotionally bonded with females of multiple generations, and they are also pretty good at helping out with the gathering and the offspring.
The bottom line is that propagating one’s genes is not always dependent upon direct reproduction by the strongest, most testosterone laden beasts of a clan or species. Individuals that encourage the livelihood of nieces, nephews, and cousins can wind up propagating genes that make individuals better at those behaviors.
Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t we genetically closer to our nieces and nephews than we are to our grandparents?
Edit: This is one reason why dominant males who kill the offspring of other males may lose out genetically. It could very well be that more of the dominant males offspring would survive if the dominant male had just left the other kids alone.
I was about to post another comment using the example in “Quest for Fire” when the Mountie came, but then it occurred to me I’d had just a little too much wine, and I really didn’t have the time to deal with offended Canadians.
Edit: Probably not the place to mention this, but I haven’t watched “Quest for Fire” since the 1982 original. And I haven’t logged on to Amazon video for six months?
So when I log on to Amazon Video, suddenly “Quest for Fire” is #5 from the top of the list. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Because genetics are funny. You can be the biggest lion and still your cub can come out being a delicate little flower. It’s all about how the cub evolves himself. Keep in mind his alpha dad and surroundings play a role in that evolution
I don’t know whether lions are animals which have an “alpha” in the pack, but I think the role of alpha is misunderstood a lot of the time. In chimps for example the alpha may be very physically strong, but it will also typically be reciprocal in grooming for example, and not completely tyrannical.
If an alpha chimp makes all of the other male chimps lives hell, 2 or 3 weaker chimps will just take him down, so being strong isn’t necessarily enough, your behaviour has to be such that it benefits the tribe overall. To have lasting power you need stability, and to have stability you need the approval of the other chimps in the tribe. Therefore the most aggressive chimps don’t necessarily make the best leaders. They need to be just aggressive enough to rule but not turn everybody else against them.
It’s not necessarily the strongest who wins a fight. Winning a fight takes (amongst many other factors) agility, intelligence and allies. Often much more so than brute strength.
Have you seen a lion? Do you think you could take it in a fair fight?
Have you seen a bull? How does it compare to a cow?
They are roided out. But they also need to stay fast, for chasing their prey (or running from the roided out predators).
In most species, including humans, the males are larger and stronger than the females.
What makes you think that they aren’t already roided out?
‘Survival of the fittest’ doesn’t mean strongest. It means a variation that is better at surviving in a given environment. An unusual amount of muscle mass might not give you an advantage in surviving and having kids.
If you are in a resource-poor environment, having tons of muscle and an extremely high metabolism will make it easier for you to starve. And it’s not just about that individual: If you have to overhunt prey in your territory to survive, the prey dies off and you also starve.
And that environment can change. There’s a reason why large dinosaurs didn’t survive the ice age, but smaller creatures did.
One of humanity’s adaptations is society, and it’s a pretty neat trick. Individuals don’t die because of injuries or chronic medical conditions — and differences in physical or cognitive abilities don’t stop people from contributing to society and personal relationships.
I recommend taking claims about evolutionary psychology with a grain of salt but we all rely on each other and have social needs, so we select partners that we enjoy being around. I think it’s safe to say that tends to strengthen bonds which hold us together and keep societies running.
Survival of the fittest does not mean survival of the strongest. Just look at humans, we are by far and away the most dominant life form on earth (from the standpoint of the ability to shape the earth to our benefit and acquire the resources we need) yet its not because we are strong that we can do that, it’s because we are intelligent. If strength was the determining factor we should be able to TKO a gorilla if we wanted to, but strength is a relatively small part of what determines our “fitness”.
Likewise, for lions, strength is only one aspect of what makes a lion the most “fit.” I would also argue that, relatively speaking, it’s also one of the least necessary. It’s far more beneficial for lions to be fast, agile, stealthy, smart, and have sharp claws/teeth in order to catch their prey or compete with other lions than it is to have brute strength.
Brute strength would also impair agility, speed, and stealth. Compare the strength, speed, and agility of bodybuilders vs track stars. A track star is going to be much leaner than a body builder, but much faster and more agile. So there’s a tradeoff between strength and these other attributes, and since strength isn’t as important, it’s not what gets selected for, and if you got too strong you would probably be selected against.
Ultimately, lions are likely at their optimal level of strength. Just strong enough to apply that strength to their speed and attacks, but not so strong as to start limiting their speed, agility, and stealth.
Pretty much all life is a “freak of nature” when you think about it. You picked lions, which are some of the most powerful and ferocious animals in the world. You don’t think they’re “freaks of nature”?
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