Questions for Atheists - Where Do the Patterns of Flora and Fauna Come From?
9Questions for Atheists
When you look at a lot of creatures such as zebras, turtles, butterflies, bees, lady bugs, leopards, etc., you will notice amazing color patterns designed into them. Who came up with those? Does nature have a “taste” in colors, and does it know which colors go together nicely?
Once the question has been fixed, we can discuss some of the research into how and why patterns form in flora and fauna.
[1] Questions for Atheists, accessed 24/7/2023
[2] Kelley JL, Fitzpatrick JL, Merilaita S. Spots and stripes: ecology and colour pattern evolution in butterflyfishes. Proc Biol Sci. 2013 Feb 20;280(1757):20122730. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.2730. PMID: 23427170; PMCID: PMC3619473.
[3] "How animals got their complex color patterns," by Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com, accessed 24/7/2023
[4] "How animals got their spots and stripes – according to maths," Thomas Woolley, The Conversation, published October 4, 2017, accessed 24/7/2023
[5] "Study Reveals How Creatures Get Spots vs. Stripes," Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience, published 7/4/2010, accessed 25/7/2023
[6] "How Evolution Explains Zebra Stripes," by Heather Scoville, ThoughtCo, updated on February 23, 2019, accessed 24/7/2023
Image Sources
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Occam's Razor
Slide 15, Chapter 6. Classification and Prediction, SlideServe, Iolana Zachary
Chaetodon unimaculatus
Teardrop Butterflyfish
Reefs.com
"The making of mysterious mazes: How animals got their complex colorations," by Osaka University
Pattern blending in model simulation and actual animals. Blending of light and dark spots via "in silico hybridization" results in maze patterns (left). Genomic analyses confirmed the hybrid origin of fishes having maze patterns (right). Credit: Seita Miyazawa (left), Photographs by Hiroshi Senou, Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History (1), The Kagoshima University Museum (2), and Keiichi Matsuura (3).
Io Moth have an eye spot on each hind wing as a defense mechanism meant to terrify potential predators.
Weird Moths and Strange Facts
Like stripes and dots in many animals, fingers can be considered as patterns that can be predicted by the Turing model. Credit: Luciano Marcon and Jelena Raspopovic
Mutant zebrafish patterning
Jennifer Owen, Robert Kelsh and Kit Yates
Figure 4. Ectopic Expression of Dfz2 or GPI-Dfz2 Leads to Posttranscriptional Accumulation of Wg
K. Cadigan, M. Fish, E. Rulifson, R. Nusse
Types of Selection
Mr Kubuske