How does a baby bird know to act like a poisonous worm when a predator shows up? The answer is genetic memory, but how does it work? How does it get encoded into dna, passed down, and executed.
In: Biology
It might be more accurate to say the baby birds have instinct, rather than genetic memory. Memory implies learned behavior, while instinct is behavior that stems from evolution.
At some point in time a baby bird had a genetic quirk that cased it to act somewhat similar to a poison worm. Predators found this off putting (either though learned behavior from a previous encounter with a real poison worm, or instinct of their own). Those baby bird lived to grow up to be adult birds, who had quirky children of their own. Over time that behavior became refined like only acting wormy when predators are around, acting extra wormy, etc.
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