Keep Dressing Like Your Bestie? Nature Can Tell You Why
13/08/2025
The outfit twins. You’ve been there, we’ve been there; sometimes there’s no getting away from it. But there’s a reason you could be turning up to the same place with the same fit: welcome to the world of convergent evolution.
What is convergent evolution?
Convergent evolution occurs when unrelated species independently develop similar traits – identical in function but not inherited from a common ancestor – often due to similar environments or lifestyles.
Take you and bestie. You live in a cold climate, and the response to that would be to leave the house with a coat, maybe the same one. Maybe, just maybe, that shade of green (because the culture was serving). Similarly, some species develop traits in response to problems they face or challenges they need to overcome. Here are some examples from Nature.
Flying Squirrels, Colugos, and Sugar Gliders – Gliding
If you can’t fly, but you desperately need to get around, why not glide?! As it turns out, that was quite a popular solution for several mammals as they independently evolved the ability to glide (not fly FYI), developing lil’ webs of skin to help them zip through trees
Anteaters, Pangolins, Aardvarks, and Echidnas – Ant-eating tongues
Great sense of smell? Powerful claws? Long, sticky tongue? A firm place in your heart? (Okay, that last one rules a few animals out of your life.) This little supergroup is known for munching a few ants here and there, so it makes sense that over the years, they’ve developed long tongues to feed on their favourite snack. Evolving a trait based on a shared diet – imagine.
Humans, Apes, Old World Monkeys, Lemurs, Chameleons, Koalas, Giant Pandas, Possums, Opossums, Waxy Monkey Leaf Frog, and some New World Monkeys – Opposable thumbs
You know what it’s like, you wake up, and think, ‘How would my life look like without opposable thumbs? Probably not that easy!’ If we were betting people (which, legally speaking, we are absolutely, unavoidably not), we’d imagine that the other species in that list probably think the same. All these mammals, as well as some non-mammals, have evolved oppy t’s to grab, twist, grasp, pull, and push things, just like we do.
Insects, Birds, Bats, and…. Pterosaurs – Flight
Powered flight has evolved at least four times throughout history with this lot. Okay, so insects have developed a different way to fly, but the other three have evolved similar methods of flight, hollowing out their bones and elongating their fingers and arm bones to move through the skies. That said, bats use stretched skin as wings, whereas birds have stiff feathers attached to arm and wing bones – just so we’re all on the same page.
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