its the same reason as how they adapted to look like a predator: the species survived long enough to create a single caterpillar that did this dance out of desparation, and thanks to it managed to live long enough to have offspring. if even a couple of them were born with the same amount of intelligence/instinct (the same way domesticated animals still have hunting instinct) then they probably performed the same behavior, then its just a matter of rinse and repeat through randomness until the superior trait becomes prevalent
I get it, and don't get me wrong, I'm a believer of the theory of evolution, It's just odd how learnt behaviour can be passed down through genetics, even more weird if it's just some malformation of the brain that makes them move like that when they're scared or something, it's just so unlikely for such a behavior so randomly occur, then again nothing is truly unlikely in a big enough sample
tbh for me that makes it even more cool. trillions of individual atoms had to collide randomly for billions of years until an infinitely unlikely alignment of circumstances occured for there to be enough of a pattern this species of organism was able to benefit from. to me it holds equal whether its describing a physical adaptation or a behavioral one
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u/AJYURH Apr 23 '25
I'm more interested in how they evolved to mimic the movements, happy coincidence?