How do genes tell a baby turtle to follow the moon to the ocean after birth?
In: Biology
Responses to certain stimuli are “hard-wired”. This happens in humans too. Genetics guides how pathways develop in the brain (idk if this is even well understood yet, lots of brain stuff is poorly understood and a lot of theories about even well known neurological diseases are just educated guesses).
Take a cat for example. They naturally develop a response to certain movements indicative of prey. Nobody taught them that. Just put a prey-like thing in their field of view and they will reflexively look at it and you can see their pupils reflexively dilate too. The turtles are likely hard-wired to follow the light.
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