They dont. It just happens that natural selection favored flowers that looked vaguely bird like and over time, flowers that looked more and more like a bird outcompeted the ones that looked less like one.
What’s funny is how absurd this is. Most flowers don’t look like birds and they’re fine.
This has nothing to do with natural selection. It’s just a coincidence that the buds very shortly and from a specific angle vaguely look like birds.
Most of the images shared are probably photoshopped to enhance the effect too.
looks at user name
Sounds like something a BIRD would say!
Squaaawk, you got me!
Wow you’re right.
It’s more like “look at this blossom that looks a bit like a bird” rather than “look at this type of tree that makes bird-like blossoms”.
I don’t think photoshop is needed to find the right flowers and photograph at the right angle.
It’s about tiny percents.
A bird will land on a flower.
A bird will not land on a bird.
So every one in a million time a bird mistakes a flower for a bird, that’s a flower that survives.
All you have to do is wait a couple million years for the odds to turn in the bird flower’s favor.
…But birds pollinate flowers. How is a bird not landing on this (particular, too) flower going to help it survive?
Maybe they’re tree scarecrows to keep bugs away
Sir, I believe those would be scarebugs.
If they keep bugs away then I’ll take a dozen.
Right, but what about the mimic plant? It mimicks whatever plant is near it. And it can mimic plastic plants. https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2022/11/30/23473062/plant-mimicry-boquila-trifoliolata
Should be a pretty trivial experiment to replicate
Animals are something plants invented to help spread their seeds around.
Know what’s wild? For millions of years nothing around ate trees, so when a tree grew and died and fell it was permanently there because there was no rot. Which is how we got petrified forests.
From my readings, I don’t think this is the case. Lignin degradation evolved rapidly with terrestrial plants. Coal and petrified wood is more due to geological events and swamps for example. Evolving ligninases is trivial for bacteria and fungi.
Life in general is most likely something the universe invented to speed up entropy.
Life is a natural part of entropy for sure.
There’s a nice theory about how it looks like the goal is actually to produce photons more efficiently.
Edit: my source is French astrophysicists and science popularizer David Elbaz https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:53012702
Why do plants know how birds look
The potatoes told them. (Potatoes have eyes)
This is brilliant, thanks
However it doesn’t explain how trees know how to fly (thinking of maple seeds with they’re near-perfect wings)
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There are a lot of weird flowers out there
Evolution is wonderfull
The lizard vine is a fake
The fruit is, but not the plant, scientific name: Tetrastigma voinieranum, common names: Chestnut Vine, Lizard Vine, Wild Grape
My aunt had one of these but she watered it too much and it drowned. lmao
More evidence birds aren’t real
The evidence is building, I can no longer deny
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No, it just implies that it was adaptive to look like a bird.
It could be for any number of reasons, including because aliens exist and years ago they were like “let’s screw up all the plants in this area for generations” until the leader’s kid saw one that kind of looked like little birds and threw themselves in front of it and said “wait, no, spare this one.”
Plus the first flower might feel a bit jealous if it finds out
Most flighted birds don’t actually have functional penis (ducks are a notable exception). Both the males and females reproduce through their cloaca.
“Appear to look like”…
I wonder what they look like if you manage to ignore the appearances.
My guess would be Yulan magnolia blossoms.
#BirdsArentReal
Please tell me there is a lemmy community for this
birdsarentreal@lemmy.world exists
subbed!
That question below is honestly a good way to demonstrate how bad people can be at understanding what would be called materialism without it being explained to them first
Easy to assume the shape of that flower is due to decisions made by the plant itself instead of the more accurate way of understanding its shape being the result of external conditions and pressures acting upon the plant and its flower growth over a long time
What the fuck does that have to do with materialism?
“…how birds look like…”
Just one of many issues with the English here.
- what it looks like
- how it looks
You need to pick a lane.
I’d read this with commas around ‘like’, rather than with a period after it: “… how birds look, like, I’m afraid” works as a sentence while “… how birds look like. I’m afraid” is both wrong, like you point out, but also sounds much more serious than the jokey tone I’d expect from a message without punctuation and capitalization
We will never know what the tweet author intended lol
I typically assume it’s a non-native speaker with things like this, but I’m not sure in this case.
I too try to give the benefit of the doubt when reading stilted text that basically conveys the meaning but the syntax is janky.
I’m in southern Ohio so there are quite a few people from the hills and hollers around here.
Methany definitely talks exactly like how that is.
Multi-track drifting
Did you understand what was being communicated? Yes? Congratulations!
Because, really, that’s generally all that’s necessary.
MY PARSER BROKE
No one cares mate.
It’s fine to correct the grammar of children in your care, but not really in other circumstances.
How do you know it’s not a bird trying to look like a plant? Y’know to evade predators and all…
What’s if it’s a bird-plant pretending to look like one of those plant-birds
Annihilation vibes
droning sounds intensify
I rewatched Annihilation recently. That fucking bear scene still haunts me. Great film.
If you’re into books, it’s also the first book in the Southern Reach Trilogy. The movie was good, but the books really flesh out the situation. I was sad they didn’t continue the movies with the rest of the books.
Just looked it up and it seems like a movie me and my wife would love. I’m surprised I’ve never seen or heard of it… do you have any more movie recs?
Guess it depends on what you like. I would say that Annihilation is a good starting point for cosmic horror, and Event Horizon - I feel - falls into that. Prolly Sphere, too.
My favorite sci-fi films are Bicentennial Man, The Matrix, Interstellar, Arrival, The Man From Earth, and Another Earth.
The best Halloween film I’ve seen is Trick r Treat.
Thank you!
Still looks like a fake
There are plants that cam see, so you are rightly afraid.
