Botfly Evolution

[nazz]

If botflies have a generic instinct template of "lay eggs on X" where X depends on certain alleles, then mutations could change the target animal. I imagine many may have had X mutate so that they were driven to lay eggs on unsuitable hosts. Then you had one that mutated so that it laid eggs on a mosquito. Then that presented an advantage because the mosquito could do all the work for the botfly in terms of travelling and risking being harmed by the host. The advantage caused that allele to spread. At least, I can imagine such a scenario being plausible.

Sure, I can too. But it's a bit more complex than that. First you have botflies laying their eggs directly on their hosts. Then you have an instinct that develops that warns the hosts of this procedure. So then you have another instinct developing where the botfly uses an intermediate vector. And another instinct that causes the botfly to turn the mosquito over and lays its eggs on the underside so that when they mosquito bites the host the warmth of the host melts the glue and the eggs drop. That in itself is an amazing coordination of a lot of moving parts. Then when you factor in that in addition you have the evolution of a meltable glue and larvae that have the instinct to burrow into the skin and that all of this has to develop in tandem to work and it begins to strain credulity that this is all merely coincidental.

 

[Jumi]

What do you propose instead? That someone smarter designed the botfly to be particularly nasty and other insects to be a bit wary so the designer could have his fun watching them?

During a course assignment I had to program a simple "robot" for a game that would compete against other participants. The options and lines of code were very limited but most robots seemed smarter and complex than they really were. I think it's human nature to attribute intelligence to things and see other things as we are.

 

[nazz]

What do you propose instead? That someone smarter designed the botfly to be particularly nasty and other insects to be a bit wary so the designer could have his fun watching them?

One possibility

During a course assignment I had to program a simple "robot" for a game that would compete against other participants. The options and lines of code were very limited but most robots seemed smarter and complex than they really were. I think it's human nature to attribute intelligence to things and see other things as we are.

Maybe it is just intelligence to do so.

 

[Jumi]

Do you have some other possibilities in mind? A nasty designer who seems to leave some designs half-way like a human spine doesn't seem likely to me.

It's also intelligence to recognize not all patterns or are signs of intelligence.

 

[nazz]

Do you have some other possibilities in mind? A nasty designer who seems to leave some designs half-way like a human spine doesn't seem likely to me.

There are many possibilities. I'm not sure any have more to support them than others.

It's also intelligence to recognize not all patterns or are signs of intelligence.

It's also intelligent to recognize that some are.

 

[Jumi]

It's also intelligent to recognize that some are.

Some, but I'm not convinced botfly is a good case for a designer.

 

[Parsimony]

Sure, I can too. But it's a bit more complex than that. First you have botflies laying their eggs directly on their hosts.

Right.

Then you have an instinct that develops that warns the hosts of this procedure.

They would probably already have such instincts against external parasites such as scratching and swatting. No need to develop a new one just for botflies.

So then you have another instinct developing where the botfly uses an intermediate vector.

Or a mutated variant of an already-existing instinct (as I posited before).

And another instinct that causes the botfly to turn the mosquito over and lays its eggs on the underside

This may not have been an immediate development. They may have just laid eggs on their back to begin with. Further mutations and selections could have created the more effective strategy of turning them over and laying eggs on their bottom.

so that when they mosquito bites the host the warmth of the host melts the glue and the eggs drop. That in itself is an amazing coordination of a lot of moving parts. Then when you factor in that in addition you have the evolution of a meltable glue and larvae that have the instinct to burrow into the skin and

The glue may have already been there, but with the prior purpose of sticking the eggs to the mammal's fur. The instinct to burrow into flesh is probably derived from the instinct to burrow into soil or carcasses (as with other larva).

that all of this has to develop in tandem to work and it begins to strain credulity that this is all merely coincidental.

That's because it's not a coincidence. Evolutionary adaptation is a trial-and-error approach. If all of this had developed in a single go, yeah, that'd be an incredible coincidence. That's almost certainly not how it happened, though. There were probably many generations and many mutations involved in making all of this happen, many of which were unsuccessful.

 

[nazz]

Here is another good example:

THE LIFE HISTORY OF THE YUCCA MOTH

The adult female moth emerges from the ground in June through July, at the time that the yucca plant is in flower (!!!), and mates shortly after emergence.

She collects the pollen of a yucca plant, using her specially shaped mouthparts, shaping it into a kind of horseshoe-shaped mass. She then flies to another inflorescence (on another plant.) There, she selects a flower, inserts her ovipositor through the wall of the carpel, and lays an egg next to the developing ovules.

She then climbs to the top of the style, and, using her specially shaped mouthparts, called maxillary tentacles (which are unique to the yucca moth), she actively transfers the pollen on to the top of the stylar canal. She repeats the process, several times, thus ensuring that the plant is adequately pollinated, and can produce seeds on which the survival of her young, and the plant, depends.

She then drops off the plant and dies.

The eggs hatch out into larvae after 7 -10 days, and they feed on the developing seeds, leaving one uneaten. After about 40 days, the 4th instar larvae eat their way out of the developing fruit, and drop to the ground using a silken thread. They then burrow their way into the soil, pupate after a year or so, and emerge as adults at the time of the flowering of the yucca plant.

The instinctive behaviours in this life history are nothing short of astounding.

Consider:

1 The young never see their mother or father, and therefore cannot copy what they did. They are born with the behaviour somehow programmed into their genes.

2 The female moth somehow knows that pollination of the flower is essential to the formation of the seeds, which are going to become the food for her offspring. She knows where the pollen needs to be placed in order to effect fertilisation.

3 Her mouthparts are shaped precisely to create the mass which is to fit into the stylar canal.

4 She somehow knows that the ovary contains the food her developing larvae will need to eat. If the plant is not pollinated, the seeds cannot develop.

5 The larvae, it has been observed, never eat all of the developing seeds, but always leave one or more to perpetuate the plant.

6 She ensures cross-pollination of the flowers, by flying from one plant to another after collecting the pollen.

7 The larvae, the grubs, pupate. That means, they dissolve entirely into a fluid within the pupal case, and reform into a flying creature, the moth. This by itself is a major, miraculous feat.

8 The pupae hatch out in June/July, at the very time that the yucca plant is in flower. Although they were underground, they are somehow aware of the correct time to hatch out and fly.

I have used the word ‘knows’ several times in this account. A moth cannot ‘know’

1 How to dissolve its grub character into a fluid enclosed in a case which is somehow going to reconstitute itself into a flying moth fully armed with instincts.

2 When to emerge at exactly the right time that the yucca plant is flowering

3 That pollination is essential to the fertilisation of the seeds and the survival of her larvae. How could she know? She never lives long enough to see either take place.

4 That the pollen she collects with her peculiarly shaped mouthparts is shaped exactly correctly to fit the stylar canal.

5 That the ovary contains ovules, which are going to develop into seeds on which her young can feed.

6 That cross pollination will ensure the continuance of the yucca plant

7 If the larvae do not have the silk thread, they would probably perish on impact with the ground.

Without the moth, the yucca species will perish. Without the yucca, the moth will perish. Each is entirely dependent on the other for its survival, because the moth lives on no other plant, and the plant is not fertilised by other insects. No moth, no yucca. No yucca, no moth.

The instinct displayed defies belief. It's like a lock and a key. Without the key, the lock is useless. Without the lock, the key is useless. Both have to be present at the same time for the device to work

 

[Ouroboros]

Would this help? The Oestrid Flies: Biology, Host-parasite Relationships, Impact and Management - Google Books

 

[nazz]

and another...


THE EUMENES WASP

This wasp occurs in my country of origin, so I'm happy to be able to say that I can testify to the accuracy of some of this from what I personally saw. However the full details are taken from various authors, such as Henri Fabre, whose observations carry more weight.

After mating has ocurred, the female wasp begins the process of confounding evolutionists (and amazing me, when I saw it doing this).

She actually builds what looks like a hollow igloo made out of mud, and sticks it on a wall or the underside of a roof. The mud is made of her own spittle, dust, and small stones. It’s quite a structure, too: about 1 cm in diameter, and 1 cm deep.

At the top, she creates an opening, and curves the lip of the opening backwards, much like the lip of a round ornamental vase. She decorates the nest with shiny pebbles too!

She then catches and stings small green grubs.

Now hear this you unbelievers, and marvel with me. She stings them - but does not kill them, merely inducing partial paralysis. This keeps the game fresh and not putrefying. I wonder how many wasps take degrees in anaesthesiology!!

Somehow, the wasp knows what sex her offspring is going to be!!! If male, she catches fewer grubs, and if female she catches more. Here's J H Fabre describing the Ammophila wasp:
http://www.pdbooksonline.com/free_books/The_Wonders_Of_Instinct_by_J_H_Fabre/page_23.php

'But the egg is laid when the provisions are stored; and this egg has a determined sex, though the most minute examination is not able to discover the differences which will decide the hatching of a female or a male.

We are therefore needs driven to this strange conclusion: the mother knows beforehand the sex of the egg which she is about to lay; and this knowledge allows her to fill the larder according to the appetite of the future grub.

What a strange world, so wholly different from ours! We fall back upon a special sense to explain the ™ hunting; what can we fall back upon to account for this intuition of the future? Can the theory of chances play a part in the hazy problem? If nothing is logically arranged with a foreseen object, how is this clear vision of the invisible acquired?'

Fabre asks a question it's impossible for evolution to answer.

But the wonders aren't over yet.

Where is the mother to lay her extremely fragile eggs? If she lays them in the mass of grubs, then they might squash it as they wriggle around.

Fabre says that he and his friends were astonished at the answer, and admits that he was unable to guess it. Before you read further, can you guess it?

The mother suspends the egg by a silken thread from the ceiling, out of reach of the grubs. When it hatches, it is suspended by its hindquarters, and can raise itself out of danger if a grub becomes too frisky.

She has also built an escape route for it, a protecting sheath that he failed to observe initially, because it was so well hidden.

Now wasps have a brain the size of a mustard seed. And yet, the mother is able to do all this - without having been taught - after all, she never sees her own mother, who dies after all the above is done.

How can she possibly

1 know how to make mud?

2 know how to build an igloo?

3 know which grubs to catch?

4 know how much venom to inject, and where to inject it so it paralyses, but doesn't kill?

5 And who thought up the idea of hanging the egg from the ceiling?

6 And how does a wasp learn how to manufacture a silk thread?

7 And how did all that get into the chromosomes?

 

[Jumi]

Which just means they've developed in a symbiotic relationship.

 

[nazz]

Would this help? The Oestrid Flies: Biology, Host-parasite Relationships, Impact and Management - Google Books

Not sure but I will check it out. Thanks.

 

[Ouroboros]

Which just means they've developed in a symbiotic relationship.

Agree.

It's co-evolution. Evolution isn't a single strain of single incidents void of all other influence, but rather a complex network of many interconnected and interdependent events.

There's this super toxic newt that produce a toxin so strong that a single drop of it in a gallon of water is still strong enough to kill a full grown human. Now, there's this snake that eats these newts. The snake is completely paralyzed (it's a nerve agent toxin) while it digest the newt, but there's evidence to show that while the newt has gone more and more toxic, the snakes have evolved more and more resilience to the toxin.

 

[Ouroboros]

Not sure but I will check it out. Thanks.

I think that the part that might hold you back of seeing the picture (my impression could be wrong here, so please correct me) is that there's not a single species evolving step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ... till something is achieved, but rather species A evolve step 1, species B evolve something in response, species C evolve in response to both, species A evolve step 2, and so on, in a huge intricate patter of responses. No fly or insect evolved independently to build a hanging nest or burrow into skin to plant eggs, but rather they all evolved in conjunction with many other evolving traits around them, in their hosts and their environments.

To understand how bot flies evolved, we have to also understand how mammals evolved, and what mutations in each one responded to the other. That's how parasites and symbiosis at large comes about.

Take computers as an example. They have video cameras, microphones, etc. When did they develop those things? And did they just do them overnight? When were they developed to work over internet? Was internet developed to supply cameras and microphones with a medium for voice-over-ip? Were they originally developed for computers or did they come from other technologies? The answer is that it's a process of many interconnected steps between many different technologies that co-joins in an apex technology. What will be next? 3D glasses is on its way. Haptic interfaces are in the early development. Or neural control. And so on.

 

[George-ananda]

Do you have some other possibilities in mind? A nasty designer who seems to leave some designs half-way like a human spine doesn't seem likely to me.

The possibility I have in mind is the fostering of life by nature spirits/beings (with intelligence beyond but different than ours but not omniscient or omnipotent). They learn from what works and doesn't work. And different groups work with different types of life.

No nasty omniscient designer.

 

[Sapiens]

I'm not going to spend that much money on a book that may not even answer my question. Do you know the answer or not? If not maybe you should buy the book so you can explain it to me.

And I wasn't making any argument for irreducible complexity per se,

I'm not an entomologist and I have little interest in bot flies. If you're not interested enough in the answer to pay the toll, perhaps you should not ask the question. A cheap solution might be for you to take the question to one of the many entomology forums available on the web rather than a forum that revolves about religion.

Oh, that's it, you're part of the new bot fly cult, no? Anyway, remember: google is your friend.

If you were not making an argument from irreducible complexity per se, perhaps you were duing the per quod dance that the IDers are so overly fond of.

 

[nazz]

I think that the part that might hold you back of seeing the picture (my impression could be wrong here, so please correct me) is that there's not a single species evolving step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ... till something is achieved, but rather species A evolve step 1, species B evolve something in response, species C evolve in response to both, species A evolve step 2, and so on, in a huge intricate patter of responses. No fly or insect evolved independently to build a hanging nest or burrow into skin to plant eggs, but rather they all evolved in conjunction with many other evolving traits around them, in their hosts and their environments.

To understand how bot flies evolved, we have to also understand how mammals evolved, and what mutations in each one responded to the other. That's how parasites and symbiosis at large comes about.

Take computers as an example. They have video cameras, microphones, etc. When did they develop those things? And did they just do them overnight? When were they developed to work over internet? Was internet developed to supply cameras and microphones with a medium for voice-over-ip? Were they originally developed for computers or did they come from other technologies? The answer is that it's a process of many interconnected steps between many different technologies that co-joins in an apex technology. What will be next? 3D glasses is on its way. Haptic interfaces are in the early development. Or neural control. And so on.

But computers were intelligently designed. Now imagine that everything you talked about had to come about via random mutation separately in each of those individual parts. That gives you a taste of what I'm talking about.

 

[nazz]

They would probably already have such instincts against external parasites such as scratching and swatting. No need to develop a new one just for botflies.

From what I read it seemed a very specific adaptation.

That's because it's not a coincidence. Evolutionary adaptation is a trial-and-error approach. If all of this had developed in a single go, yeah, that'd be an incredible coincidence. That's almost certainly not how it happened, though. There were probably many generations and many mutations involved in making all of this happen, many of which were unsuccessful.

By "coincidence" I mean unintelligent random mutation that just happens to work out right.

 

[George-ananda]

If you were not making an argument from irreducible complexity per se, perhaps you were duing the per quod dance that the IDers are so overly fond of.

We are not doubting materialists can propose an explanation for everything, but we are doubting the reasonableness of their explanation versus other explanations.

 

[Sapiens]

We are not doubting materialists can propose an explanation for everything, but we are doubting the reasonableness of their explanation versus other explanations.

Before you do that you might experiment with learning a little biology and avoiding the trap of arguing from ignorance.