- Joined
- Mar 18, 2009
- Messages
- 1,649
Thanks for the heads up chone, I have no doubt thats true. I've heard of the Watering Hole but I have no idea where it is or how to get to it.
Why do new world tarantulas have irritating hairs but old worlds don't?
- Thread starter Sparkn
- Start date
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2010
- Messages
- 101
My guess is OW T's evolved to be more defensive where NW T's to rely more on the urticating hairs. Urticating hairs are a great defense against small mammals.
Magic man dunnit. 
OK seriously, I think urticating hairs are simply a result of natural selection. The individuals who live long enough to breed and pass on their traits had urticating hairs that protected them from specific predators, thus they lived long enough to pass on those genes.
But that wouldn't explain the OW T's absence of urticating hairs, other than possibly different predators as was mentioned before. The individuals who were slower and possessed urticating hairs were not as effective because the predators don't just go for them face-first, instead maybe they grab at them.
With T's I wouldn't go so far as to say that urticating hairs were a product of sexual selection though, since they don't seem to choose a mate based on appearance, etc.
I wanted to put my 2 cents in on the creation vs evolution 'debate' too. The reason creation is not accepted scientifically is because science has looked into that and tried to make it work, as they did with spontaneous generation, neither of those hypothesis worked, neither could be backed up with any kind of evidence. Evolution does work and there is a huge fossil record to back it up.
Also, If evolution didn't work, most of your medications and antibiotics wouldn't work.
OK seriously, I think urticating hairs are simply a result of natural selection. The individuals who live long enough to breed and pass on their traits had urticating hairs that protected them from specific predators, thus they lived long enough to pass on those genes.
But that wouldn't explain the OW T's absence of urticating hairs, other than possibly different predators as was mentioned before. The individuals who were slower and possessed urticating hairs were not as effective because the predators don't just go for them face-first, instead maybe they grab at them.
With T's I wouldn't go so far as to say that urticating hairs were a product of sexual selection though, since they don't seem to choose a mate based on appearance, etc.
I wanted to put my 2 cents in on the creation vs evolution 'debate' too. The reason creation is not accepted scientifically is because science has looked into that and tried to make it work, as they did with spontaneous generation, neither of those hypothesis worked, neither could be backed up with any kind of evidence. Evolution does work and there is a huge fossil record to back it up.
Also, If evolution didn't work, most of your medications and antibiotics wouldn't work.