What sort of selection pressure decides that jumping is good for species survival while running isn’t? Isn’t quadruped running just all around more energy efficient?
In: Biology
It worked and that’s basically it. Hopping didn’t cost enough for it to get them killed. Evolution works on a good enough scale.
Evolution is not what’s the best or most efficient strategy.
It’s sitting in a room throwing shit at the wall to figure out what sticks and then when you find something that sticks running with the first option. Sometimes there is another team also throwing shit at the wall and they can outcompete you because their doodad is more efficient but not always.
So because there isn’t some overarching intelligent design you get things that just don’t make rational sense but also just happen to work. Sometimes they work just well enough to continue the species. Rats being tumor factories with really high birth rates are an example of this. They have a huge disadvantage in the fact that they are evolved to have very short lives, but they are also evolved to be very adaptable to multiple environments and they procreate very quickly. So the team throwing shit at the wall got breed fast & adaptable and totally missed the fact they also choose tumor factory.
Because the ones that do, didn’t get eaten.
That’s all evolution is. Random mutations, strategies that cause things not to die (or die at lesser rates than other traits).
Because hopping is probably a pretty good local maximum for certain body types (mainly compact smaller bodies).
This made me think of this AI learning to walk video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ2bqz3HPJE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ2bqz3HPJE) and at 2:02 one of the viable methods of locomotion it’s discovered is hopping.
Powerful hind limbs for leaping make for effective rapid evasion. A rabbit sitting nibbling some grass can rapidly leap out of the way when a predator attacks, increasing its odds of evading attack. Since a rabbit isn’t exactly walking long distances to eat most of the time, efficiency of movement is not important. Since rabbits are dinner for lots of animals, speed and evasion is very important. So rabbits maximize for speed and evasion.
I’m confused. What do you mean by quadruped running? The spring like action of horses, cats, and rabbits look pretty similar to me. It’s only different when they’re not sprinting.
Hopping is actually pretty efficient — look at kangaroos.
And evolution isn’t targeted towards a goal, it mostly works by concentrating any trait that improves an organism’s chances of leaving surviving offspring. A bunny ancestor successfully hopped away from a fox ancestor and bred more hoppy babies. Repeat for a few thousand generations, and you get bunnies.
rabbits hop because they have long powerful back legs built into an otherwise short compact body. When they get going, they run pretty much like any other animal.
When they are just moving around slower or at short distances they “hop” because their back legs are a lot longer than their front.
They are prey animals……so, they can hide decent but also quick and run incredibly fast.
sprinting for four legged animals isn’t that different,
Look at a cheetah, the fastest runner. They dont use one leg at the time. They use both their hind legs at the same time, just like a jump, and then the front legs are more like a support things, they might add some speed but the vast majority of their speed comes from their hind leg ‘jumps’.
They’re sprinting is basically just be able to jump a lot in quick succession.
Pet rabbit owner here. If you try to get a hold on one you would understand 😂
They can hop away from still position with extreme ease and force. They can zigzag run even in small spaces. And they can seriously kick.
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