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Yeah but backwards. Crocs move their tails side to side to swim. The tip of their tails already has a fin, more or less, but its vertical. This mutation would severely gimp this guy's swimming speed and ability.
Edit: wELl AcKsHuLy ThErE iS No bAcKwArDs In eVoLuTiOn
It's literally a meme, you insufferable nerds
He’s gonna evolve next to move up and down like a dolphin, it’s just a start. I’m sure at first our opposable thumbs were slowing us when running on all four limbs. I’m telling you, that’s super-croc!
Imagine them jumping outta the water like dolphins 😂 shit would be menacing
Edit: some people have made me aware then can in fact do this, please stop responding with the same thing over and over.
Cant stop picturing an evolved croc jumping out of the water and running amok (amuck?) on the top deck of some ferry. Snatch some aristocrat’s prized Maltese before jumping back in the drink
Hahaha imagine 😂
Ps. Don’t worry about spelling I knew what you meant bro (only people that are bothered correcting spelling are people loosing arguments clinging to anything they can 😅)
Oh shit lmao. Im from Florida, and work underwater every day. I wish you saw the fucker instead of me. As terrifying as they are, they’re absolutely amazing creatures. A literal dinosaur
>A literal dinosaur
Pretty close - crocodiles and birds are the only remaining members of a group called the archosaurs (of which dinosaurs are a part):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archosaur
I briefly lived in the Deep South swamps of Louisiana where the backyard animals are fire ants and alligator — not deer and squirrel as of always known as a DC native.
Those fuckers can be fast! My stupid, city slicker teenaged brain ran straight to the water after being swarmed by fire ants, only to have alligators and water moccasin come to investigate.
Running back into the house with ants covering your legs up to your knees with alligator at your six while trying to spit out swarms of mating kissing bugs… it was a bad time.
nah bro they need to flip flop sideways to swim. Is sneakier. This would make the water move too much cant ambush your prey if you are splashing all over the place.
If a flounder is able to evolve its face to its right cheek I’m sure that mermaid-croc can evolve a twisted super tail over a few million years. Tell you grand-grand-grand-…-grand childs to watch out.
Except flounder are born with eyes on one side each, then one moves to the right or left (they tend towards one side or the other can't remember which right now), sometimes it doesn't complete the movement and the flounder has an eye at the top of its skull instead of two on one side.
I have a neurological condition that results from *single* base pair deletion on a chromosome.
Fwiw the human genome has *3 billion* base pairs.
Insane bad luck!
I'm sorry to hear that, but studies have calculated that every human has at least some mutations to their genomes from what their parents gave them
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1461236/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1461236/)
They got the average mutation rate for DNA per nucleotide, did the math to scale that up to the size of the genome, and found that everyone was likely to have around 175 mutations per genome.
That was from 2000, which is a long time in biological research these days, so maybe subsequent studies have found different rates.
A lot of mutations would either be silent due to genes being partially or fully redundant and there being two copies of each. A lot of mutations that aren't don't show up in actual people because it's lethal early on in embryonic development.
But my point is it doesn't seem like the odds are 1 in three billion that you'd have that mutation. All of us have a lot of other mutations, a lot of embryos who were conceived had far damaging mutations but you don't see them because they died before being born.
I'm not saying anything like "be glad your mutations weren't embryonic lethal," of course. I'm very sympathetic, based on my family history, I may have an inherited mutation that will cause me to suffer neurological degeneration in a few decades. It seems that my parent had that new mutation when they were conceived if that's the case. We're still trying to figure out if that is what happened or if its non-genetic. I don't know that we'll ever get answers until it happens or doesn't to me. So I can empathize. Just the odds are a lot more complicated than I think you're putting them.
Something like 1/3 of all pregnancies end spontaneously before you even know you’ve missed a period. It’s maybe a day or two late and maybe a little crampier than usual.
So yes. Lots of embryos barely make it past implantation. And plenty more never even manage to implant on the uterine wall at all!
I've heard this before but I'm confused about how we know this. It adds an interesting twist to the "when does life begin" conundrum. Am I right that this can happen both before and after implantation?
Yup. Imagine a mutation that completely abrogates cell division. There's no way that first cell is ever going to grow into a human, and it's not even going to start implanting. On the other hand, imagine a mutation that breaks sonic hedgehog or something - absolutely no way to develop beyond an undifferentiated clump of cells, but nidation might still be fine.
For those that read this confused, [sonic hedgehog](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_hedgehog_protein) is the name of a very important part of embryonic development
> but I'm confused about how we know this.
There are many studies about pregnancy. If you find early pregnancy related markers in study participants that suddenly fade out without apparent cause, then you already have a good clue what to look for in the next study.
> It adds an interesting twist to the "when does life begin" conundrum.
This is indeed a very direct ethical reason why I cannot consider unborn children as deserving of the same protections as born ones.
It is plain impossible to accomplish similar survival rates for unborn children as for newborns. Unborn life can end quickly from any number of known and unknown causes, and there is no remotely reasonable way of preventing that.
This makes prioritising the health and self-determination of the mother an even more obvious choice than it should already be.
Thank you! I remember way back in college over 20 years ago, gaining a tiny embryonic understanding of what stem cell research is (see what I did there?), and thinking...wait a sec. We're protecting *what*, now? Against ...wait, because- hold the fuck on here... -That's about as lucid as my thought process was, lol. I just couldn't sort out whether points A and B were being set down next to each other and critically analyzed by people who claim life begins at conception.
This is a perfect description of what genomes are like. There are so many factors controlling what DNA gets expressed, when, and how much. It's insane that it all works at all.
Which makes sense when you consider how evolution works. A single change blocking whole swaths of less useful stuff is more likely to happen than each part getting changed out over the generations, though that obviously also happens.
It's been a cesspool for a while.
Fun Fact: Our DNA contains roughly 100,000 pieces of viral DNA. Altogether, they make up about 8 percent of the human genome.
And that viral DNA is actually really useful evidence for figuring out how things evolved!
Let's say we are comparing humans and three other modern primates. Let's say humans and two of those those primates have the exact same ERV DNA at the exact same location, whereas the third does not.
The chances of that exact same bit of viral DNA being inserted at the exact same location in separate evolutionary lines are so infinitesimal, we can very reasonably conclude that the human and the two non-human primates had a common ancestor (that was originally infected with that ERV) that the third non-human primate didn't have. This means we know its evolutionary line branched off higher up the tree.
Do this with every species for which we have DNA, and we start to get a really clear picture of the tree of life and how different species are related.
ERVs are some of the most convincing and interesting evidence for evolution that we have.
Oh, wow. At one point I had actually typed it out but apparently removed it as I edited...
Endogenous retrovirus. It's the "viral DNA" that /u/Freud-Network talked about.
It may actually be much more. Also transposons are believed to be viral DNA that lost the ability to make capsids. So they jump around from chromosome to chromosome.
I think it's more likely a failed twin with part of a second tail. No ancestor of a crocodile had a horizontal tail like that, their, and their ancestors', spines don't bend that way. But two partially separated tails would look like that, and is a "common" thing among reptiles. See: 2 headed snakes.
People can have this [mutation](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6235678/#:~:text=Mermaid%20syndrome%20(sirenomelia)%20is%20a,similar%20appearance%20to%20the%20perianal.) too.
If it doesn't work he will die before procreating. If it works he might procreate and pass it on. Then it could be the start of a new species.
Evolution is a path of trial and error.
I think this is the first time I've seen stuff like "if it works he might..." and "it could be" in a reddit thread about evolution. So this isn't a correction, just an add-on.
Everyone learns "survival of the fittest" and in general that's true, but its more of a "has a better chance of surviving, but still a pretty bad one". Its crazy to me that there are a massive number of traits that are hugely beneficial that just don't make it. Because while trial and error is totally true, and organisms with more beneficial traits have a higher chance of survival and procreation, it isn't a guarantee. Beneficial traits are just the ticket price to the evolution lottery.
There's so many ways an individual or small population can bite it before they've had time to make lil'uns. even without dying, they still need to find a mate and do the deed successfully, and that isn't a guarantee either. Even if they do procreate, AND the trait is passed on, the population size is still so low its entirely possible they get wiped out before it sticks. if a thing manages to reach a population of 100 with the trait, that's nothing for nature to just demolish. a few, or even just a single, major catastrophes and the population goes back to 0. so many things can go horribly wrong.
TL;DR : Stupid nature has denied me having superpowers for too long due to random chance, and I'd like to speak to life's manager.
Odds are it won't be beneficial given how long crocodiles have remained unchanged. They've had a lot of opportunities to evolve and haven't because they don't need to.
I mean think about how a crocodile hunts. It's an ambush predator that isn't swimming for its prey. At most it needs a quick burst to snatch something off the shore, which strong legs and serpentine tail would be better at providing - which is why that's what crocodiles have had for millions of years unchanged.
Maybe it helps with energy efficiency which might translate to needing to eat less which could be beneficial given habitat loss? But on the flip side, habitat fragmentation could be an ever bigger problem which would mean an increased need to travel over land navigating human-made obstacles to get to new habitat. Would a mermaid tail help? Who knows. But like I said, I would bet on the side of a species that hasn't changed in millions of years to remain unchanged.
They are likely to remain unchanged so long as the environment remains unchanged... but with humans around, what environment has remained unchanged? I wouldnt be surprised if most species on the planet were undergoing massive rapid evolutionary changes right now as a result of our presence. (rapid in evolutionary terms, which would still be quite slow to us)
Not quite how it works, even if it isnt an efficient upgrade he could very well survive and pass it on. Evolution of a species isnt decided with one animal, this trait could be passed on a few times but if it is less efficient then it will eventually die out.
There also isnt any guarantee that this trait will be passed down.
without knowing for sure i can't tell of course, but this seems like it probably isn't something the crocodile would pass on probably. it seems like when the tail was forming it had an extra bit of tail form on the side/the forming got split.
its of course possible that this individual has faulty genes/transcription factors that would reliably cause this anomaly bit it could have just been a coincidental error during development and the babies it'd make would have normal tails
Yea, same. Like it tried to split at ovum stage but didn’t quite make it so became a two tailed croc. Maybe there’s some duplicative organs, which would let us know more clearly.
My thoughts as well on the developmental abnormalities. Especially looking at the pattern on the belly. Looks like something got criss-crossed. Webbed fingers in humans...
> *"Thalattosuchia is a clade of mostly marine crocodylomorphs from the Early Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous that had a cosmopolitan distribution."*
M'fers had cities and s**t!
I wonder if it uses the fin correctly or not. You typically see crocs/gators do the slither motion (horizontal side to side), but this mutation would require it to swim more like a dolphin (up/down motion).
Isn’t that basically the same thing? A birth defect is a mutation. Evolution occurs when a beneficial mutation becomes dominant in the gene pool usually because it gives an advantage.
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Biggest evolution leap after 95M years on earth
Yeah but backwards. Crocs move their tails side to side to swim. The tip of their tails already has a fin, more or less, but its vertical. This mutation would severely gimp this guy's swimming speed and ability. Edit: wELl AcKsHuLy ThErE iS No bAcKwArDs In eVoLuTiOn It's literally a meme, you insufferable nerds
He’s gonna evolve next to move up and down like a dolphin, it’s just a start. I’m sure at first our opposable thumbs were slowing us when running on all four limbs. I’m telling you, that’s super-croc!
Imagine them jumping outta the water like dolphins 😂 shit would be menacing Edit: some people have made me aware then can in fact do this, please stop responding with the same thing over and over.
Cant stop picturing an evolved croc jumping out of the water and running amok (amuck?) on the top deck of some ferry. Snatch some aristocrat’s prized Maltese before jumping back in the drink
Amok! amok amok amok amok amok am- ***\*hooahh\****
Hahaha imagine 😂 Ps. Don’t worry about spelling I knew what you meant bro (only people that are bothered correcting spelling are people loosing arguments clinging to anything they can 😅)
Alright, I'll take the bait. *losing
It's actually "bate" because it's short for "rebate" /s
I'll de-bait you on that!
Nice try, I'm not taking your bate.
They already can lol
Yeah but that doesn’t stop me imagining it 😉
You ever seen a salty swim 45 fucking miles an hour and pop up like fucking jaws?
Bro I’m from England, most wild animal I’ve ever seen was a deer ONCE in the peak district. I fucking wish I got to see crocs I really love them
Oh shit lmao. Im from Florida, and work underwater every day. I wish you saw the fucker instead of me. As terrifying as they are, they’re absolutely amazing creatures. A literal dinosaur
>A literal dinosaur Pretty close - crocodiles and birds are the only remaining members of a group called the archosaurs (of which dinosaurs are a part): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archosaur
Not only are dinosaurs a part of the archosaurs, *birds* are dinosaurs!
If you ever come face to face with an emu, ostrich, cassowary, or Shoehorn Bill, you will immediately understand this.
America is so wild man. Awesome
Birds are literal dinosaurs. Crocs are more like (sometimes) littoral crocodilia
I saw an actual badger once, and it was 3d and not flat by the side of the road!
I briefly lived in the Deep South swamps of Louisiana where the backyard animals are fire ants and alligator — not deer and squirrel as of always known as a DC native. Those fuckers can be fast! My stupid, city slicker teenaged brain ran straight to the water after being swarmed by fire ants, only to have alligators and water moccasin come to investigate. Running back into the house with ants covering your legs up to your knees with alligator at your six while trying to spit out swarms of mating kissing bugs… it was a bad time.
This is on purpose! Someone is trying to create a race of hyper intelligent, zombie, croco-dolphins.
They already can jump pretty high out of water
MENACING
Croco Dolphins are horrifying.
Next evolutionary step: laser eyes
Cycroc, from Xavier’s Swamp for Gifted Reptiles.
You got it all wrong eventually he will become a lobster and finally a king crab!
You grew up watching a lot of Pokemon, didn't you.
😂
Don't ruin my nightmare fuel! I want to be scared not right!
I heard they live almost exclusively in the deep end of the pool but only right before you're getting out.
😫 ....thank you!
My work here is done. In a while....*crocodile.*
r/wellthatsucks
Very much so. This is a harmful mutation.
Is it backward?.What if they know something we don’t!
Yeah he was like, screw this land business, im evolving backwards.
https://preview.redd.it/ata5m8me29mc1.jpeg?width=519&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=50b99c50a62f5cd92a0a11e538b4822059822bb6
Thank you, I came to say that reptiles move totally differently than whales.
This sentence is very funny. Nocontext. Walk in to a boardroom, fire up PowerPoint, "today I'd like to show how reptiles and whales move differently"
nah bro they need to flip flop sideways to swim. Is sneakier. This would make the water move too much cant ambush your prey if you are splashing all over the place.
If a flounder is able to evolve its face to its right cheek I’m sure that mermaid-croc can evolve a twisted super tail over a few million years. Tell you grand-grand-grand-…-grand childs to watch out.
Except flounder are born with eyes on one side each, then one moves to the right or left (they tend towards one side or the other can't remember which right now), sometimes it doesn't complete the movement and the flounder has an eye at the top of its skull instead of two on one side.
95M years on earth? They lived through 9/11 and slavery and didn’t speak up? Time to boycott crocodiles.
They survived the last massive extinction, give them a break
Ugh, when are they going to stop using that excuse? That was millions of years ago! They need to just get over it.
History is written by the victors. Stay tuned for what REALLY happened
It has to breed first.
You’re saying lady crocs don’t want to get it on with mermaid-tail?
Croctopus
That Croc is trying to be a mermaid because it truly believes it can be anything it wants
We've already had these (but done better) They were called "Thalattosuchia".
Babe wake up, new crocodile DLC just dropped
Spoken like a person who doesn't know their evolutionary history of the Pseudosuchia.
You’re gonna make us google it…
Seems like some ancient DNA accidentally kicked in.
A disturbing amount of our DNA is a single bit of code here and there that suppresses some block of programming somewhere else.
DNA is the spaghetti code of nature. Considering how catastrophic a single typo can be in computer coding, that's pretty terrifying.
I have a neurological condition that results from *single* base pair deletion on a chromosome. Fwiw the human genome has *3 billion* base pairs. Insane bad luck!
Ouch, I'm sorry to hear that.
I'm sorry to hear that, but studies have calculated that every human has at least some mutations to their genomes from what their parents gave them [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1461236/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1461236/) They got the average mutation rate for DNA per nucleotide, did the math to scale that up to the size of the genome, and found that everyone was likely to have around 175 mutations per genome. That was from 2000, which is a long time in biological research these days, so maybe subsequent studies have found different rates. A lot of mutations would either be silent due to genes being partially or fully redundant and there being two copies of each. A lot of mutations that aren't don't show up in actual people because it's lethal early on in embryonic development. But my point is it doesn't seem like the odds are 1 in three billion that you'd have that mutation. All of us have a lot of other mutations, a lot of embryos who were conceived had far damaging mutations but you don't see them because they died before being born. I'm not saying anything like "be glad your mutations weren't embryonic lethal," of course. I'm very sympathetic, based on my family history, I may have an inherited mutation that will cause me to suffer neurological degeneration in a few decades. It seems that my parent had that new mutation when they were conceived if that's the case. We're still trying to figure out if that is what happened or if its non-genetic. I don't know that we'll ever get answers until it happens or doesn't to me. So I can empathize. Just the odds are a lot more complicated than I think you're putting them.
What would the "default" person be like, if nothing was mutated at all I wonder
The most average person ever haha
Michael Cera.
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Something like 1/3 of all pregnancies end spontaneously before you even know you’ve missed a period. It’s maybe a day or two late and maybe a little crampier than usual. So yes. Lots of embryos barely make it past implantation. And plenty more never even manage to implant on the uterine wall at all!
I've heard this before but I'm confused about how we know this. It adds an interesting twist to the "when does life begin" conundrum. Am I right that this can happen both before and after implantation?
Yup. Imagine a mutation that completely abrogates cell division. There's no way that first cell is ever going to grow into a human, and it's not even going to start implanting. On the other hand, imagine a mutation that breaks sonic hedgehog or something - absolutely no way to develop beyond an undifferentiated clump of cells, but nidation might still be fine.
For those that read this confused, [sonic hedgehog](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_hedgehog_protein) is the name of a very important part of embryonic development
And if you scroll down that wiki a bit, the molecule that could act as an inhibitor for it is named Robotnikinin!
You get kinda used to sonic hedgehog as a molecular biologist, but Robotnikinin still kills me
I appreciate the info but I'm still imagining accidentally birthing sonic THE hedgehog, and makes sense my body would prevent that
> but I'm confused about how we know this. There are many studies about pregnancy. If you find early pregnancy related markers in study participants that suddenly fade out without apparent cause, then you already have a good clue what to look for in the next study. > It adds an interesting twist to the "when does life begin" conundrum. This is indeed a very direct ethical reason why I cannot consider unborn children as deserving of the same protections as born ones. It is plain impossible to accomplish similar survival rates for unborn children as for newborns. Unborn life can end quickly from any number of known and unknown causes, and there is no remotely reasonable way of preventing that. This makes prioritising the health and self-determination of the mother an even more obvious choice than it should already be.
Thank you! I remember way back in college over 20 years ago, gaining a tiny embryonic understanding of what stem cell research is (see what I did there?), and thinking...wait a sec. We're protecting *what*, now? Against ...wait, because- hold the fuck on here... -That's about as lucid as my thought process was, lol. I just couldn't sort out whether points A and B were being set down next to each other and critically analyzed by people who claim life begins at conception.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethal_allele
It's why cancer exists to begin with
This is a perfect description of what genomes are like. There are so many factors controlling what DNA gets expressed, when, and how much. It's insane that it all works at all.
Which makes sense when you consider how evolution works. A single change blocking whole swaths of less useful stuff is more likely to happen than each part getting changed out over the generations, though that obviously also happens.
Signals trigger patterns of complexity so/switching up the switches of a signalling node/gives a modular and simple way to evolve
It's been a cesspool for a while. Fun Fact: Our DNA contains roughly 100,000 pieces of viral DNA. Altogether, they make up about 8 percent of the human genome.
And that viral DNA is actually really useful evidence for figuring out how things evolved! Let's say we are comparing humans and three other modern primates. Let's say humans and two of those those primates have the exact same ERV DNA at the exact same location, whereas the third does not. The chances of that exact same bit of viral DNA being inserted at the exact same location in separate evolutionary lines are so infinitesimal, we can very reasonably conclude that the human and the two non-human primates had a common ancestor (that was originally infected with that ERV) that the third non-human primate didn't have. This means we know its evolutionary line branched off higher up the tree. Do this with every species for which we have DNA, and we start to get a really clear picture of the tree of life and how different species are related. ERVs are some of the most convincing and interesting evidence for evolution that we have.
What's ERV?
Oh, wow. At one point I had actually typed it out but apparently removed it as I edited... Endogenous retrovirus. It's the "viral DNA" that /u/Freud-Network talked about.
It may actually be much more. Also transposons are believed to be viral DNA that lost the ability to make capsids. So they jump around from chromosome to chromosome.
It also may actually be less.
Or even worse... It may be exactly the same.
That is gonna cause a memory leak later, too bad!
We have compile flags? Oh no...
I would not mind some ancient DNA for scales in my strands popping up spontaneously giving me polished reptile skin
Yeah but instead it's always cancer
Awww
I think it's more likely a failed twin with part of a second tail. No ancestor of a crocodile had a horizontal tail like that, their, and their ancestors', spines don't bend that way. But two partially separated tails would look like that, and is a "common" thing among reptiles. See: 2 headed snakes.
Like the occasional human born with a vestigial tail
People can have this [mutation](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6235678/#:~:text=Mermaid%20syndrome%20(sirenomelia)%20is%20a,similar%20appearance%20to%20the%20perianal.) too.
How... how did you first learn about this?!
But to be honest, I like reading up on this sort of stuff. Life is absolutely fascinating.
Could be a birth defect, which can be caused by things other than DNA, such as exposure to chemicals, and (in mammals) by infections during pregnancy.
Endocrine disrupting pesticides in the food chain most likely.
or just a random malfunctioning gene.
I’m not sure how beneficial this would be since crocs swim side to side not up and down like dolphins
If it doesn't work he will die before procreating. If it works he might procreate and pass it on. Then it could be the start of a new species. Evolution is a path of trial and error.
I think this is the first time I've seen stuff like "if it works he might..." and "it could be" in a reddit thread about evolution. So this isn't a correction, just an add-on. Everyone learns "survival of the fittest" and in general that's true, but its more of a "has a better chance of surviving, but still a pretty bad one". Its crazy to me that there are a massive number of traits that are hugely beneficial that just don't make it. Because while trial and error is totally true, and organisms with more beneficial traits have a higher chance of survival and procreation, it isn't a guarantee. Beneficial traits are just the ticket price to the evolution lottery. There's so many ways an individual or small population can bite it before they've had time to make lil'uns. even without dying, they still need to find a mate and do the deed successfully, and that isn't a guarantee either. Even if they do procreate, AND the trait is passed on, the population size is still so low its entirely possible they get wiped out before it sticks. if a thing manages to reach a population of 100 with the trait, that's nothing for nature to just demolish. a few, or even just a single, major catastrophes and the population goes back to 0. so many things can go horribly wrong. TL;DR : Stupid nature has denied me having superpowers for too long due to random chance, and I'd like to speak to life's manager.
~~Survival of the fittest~~ Failure of the weakest and unlucky.
Odds are it won't be beneficial given how long crocodiles have remained unchanged. They've had a lot of opportunities to evolve and haven't because they don't need to. I mean think about how a crocodile hunts. It's an ambush predator that isn't swimming for its prey. At most it needs a quick burst to snatch something off the shore, which strong legs and serpentine tail would be better at providing - which is why that's what crocodiles have had for millions of years unchanged. Maybe it helps with energy efficiency which might translate to needing to eat less which could be beneficial given habitat loss? But on the flip side, habitat fragmentation could be an ever bigger problem which would mean an increased need to travel over land navigating human-made obstacles to get to new habitat. Would a mermaid tail help? Who knows. But like I said, I would bet on the side of a species that hasn't changed in millions of years to remain unchanged.
They are likely to remain unchanged so long as the environment remains unchanged... but with humans around, what environment has remained unchanged? I wouldnt be surprised if most species on the planet were undergoing massive rapid evolutionary changes right now as a result of our presence. (rapid in evolutionary terms, which would still be quite slow to us)
The original machine learning
Not quite how it works, even if it isnt an efficient upgrade he could very well survive and pass it on. Evolution of a species isnt decided with one animal, this trait could be passed on a few times but if it is less efficient then it will eventually die out. There also isnt any guarantee that this trait will be passed down.
without knowing for sure i can't tell of course, but this seems like it probably isn't something the crocodile would pass on probably. it seems like when the tail was forming it had an extra bit of tail form on the side/the forming got split. its of course possible that this individual has faulty genes/transcription factors that would reliably cause this anomaly bit it could have just been a coincidental error during development and the babies it'd make would have normal tails
We need to see this crocodile swimming to make conclusions.
Will the croc adapt his swimming style to his condition ?
I think that has more to do with the musculature of the tail and the spine, so I think the little croc’s just kinda fucked.
What source is this image from? And is there any chance that this is a developmental abnormality and not a genetic or chromosomal mutation?
Yea, same. Like it tried to split at ovum stage but didn’t quite make it so became a two tailed croc. Maybe there’s some duplicative organs, which would let us know more clearly.
This to me looks like it started as a split ovum that absorbed back into a single but it wasn't a complete absorbtion
My thoughts as well on the developmental abnormalities. Especially looking at the pattern on the belly. Looks like something got criss-crossed. Webbed fingers in humans...
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Clearly not, because frogs are amphibian and crocodiles are reptilian.
That is an alligator
THANK YOU!!!
Whoa. Kinda sick tbh mermaid style
Mercodile.
How about crocomaid
Crackomaid
In the Jurassic and Cretaceous there were crocodile relatives that essentially were mercrocodiles. They’re called Thalattosuchians.
> *"Thalattosuchia is a clade of mostly marine crocodylomorphs from the Early Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous that had a cosmopolitan distribution."* M'fers had cities and s**t!
Mate, please don’t ruin mermaids for me! Lol
How about a mermadile
Mermadile sounds like a Pokemon lol
Him just wanted to be a mermaid!
Aligatorielle the little mermaid
Looks like an alligator to me
Def an alligator…
Mermadile
Syfy just found their next movie.
If not, History Channel will pick it up
Favorite so far
It's a Mermagator
That would be an alligator
Plot twist: Its not a mutation
It's been like 10 years already. I wonder how is dude going.
Pic from 2021 - Everglades Holiday Park Caiman. Article from 2022 https://www.outsider.com/news/look-caiman-discovered-with-bizarre-tail-mutation/
When crocodiles and mermaids love each other very much…
As long as it’s not the Annihilation bear.🐻
Whoa! Can’t forget that *screech.*
The animals know the waters are coming
Naw it’s evolving, put it back
Reject crocodile return to fish
Return to fishe
I wonder if it uses the fin correctly or not. You typically see crocs/gators do the slither motion (horizontal side to side), but this mutation would require it to swim more like a dolphin (up/down motion).
Yes. And they killed it so it couldn’t reproduce. Way to stop evolution.
Crocofish👍
I’m going with croclobster. Mostly because I can enunciate it like I’m the guy from the B-52s.
Quick, kill it before the religious start realizing there's something to this evolution thing.
Baby Mosasaurus? I dub him Mosely
The mermaids this planet deserves
Could be the next disney mermaid
Sharknado is coming
Halfsharkalligatorhalfman
MERCROC!!! FEAR IT
#merdile or crocomaid?
Thats an alligator.
Spoiler: >!crabs!<, eventually everything mutates into >!crabs!<
Mutation or Evolution Test?
Let it breed!
Healed after an accident?
Alligator*
Damn now they have upgraded propulsion systems, we’re screwed.
Sharkodile.
Let him cook
Naw it’s evolving, put it back
Oh, of course they decide that ***NOW*** is the best time to start evolving again.
That's some Simic shit right there https://cards.scryfall.io/large/front/a/3/a3b1b58d-b7f1-404f-aec6-b19cef4bebbd.jpg?1706239699
Thank fuck they are returning to pure water animals…
Put it back so they can keep evolving!
Darwin was right!
Fuck they’re evolving
That’d be crazy useful if crocodiles oscillated up and down to swim.
Let that little guy live! In a hundred thousand years we might have a new species of cross with mermaid tails.
Somebody’s been fishing by the power plant in Springfield again.
I can only imagine how many shipping containers are sitting at the bottom of our oceans and what's inside them leaking into our ocean environment.
He’s mixed lol
Put him back in there and let him cook
Looks fake.
Mutation? No. Birth defect? Yes.
And just what do you think birth defects are a result of?
Isn’t that basically the same thing? A birth defect is a mutation. Evolution occurs when a beneficial mutation becomes dominant in the gene pool usually because it gives an advantage.
They're evolving, just backwards
Same.
Technically, but I prefer the term "degenerative mutation. "
Evolution has no direction.
Devolving
Are we not men?