Giraffes and Red-Nosed Reindeer

I already got a question about the previous post:  “If giraffes don’t have long necks because of generations of giraffes stretching their necks, how did they get so long?”  In other words, “If you can’t give acquired traits to your children, how do species get so well suited to their environment?”

Let’s stick with the giraffes:

(By the way, doesn’t it sound like the plural of giraffe should be giravves? Like half and halves? Hm.)

Giraffes evolved from a deer-looking ancestor with an average neck length.

A few random mutations in a group of them brought about a few individuals with longer necks.  These long-neckies could reach leaves on trees that no one else could reach, so they never went hungry.  They had long-necked children, and so on and so on until we get very long-necked giraffes (or giravves, if you’re with me on this one).

I’d like to imagine that the first of the really tall giraffes was mocked much like Rudolph–perhaps they never let him play in any giraffe games.

But then when all the other giraffes saw that his long neck made him able to reach all the yummiest of the leaves up high on trees, they shut up about it–the same way that Rudolph’s red nose mutation turned out to have a great purpose as well.

In fact, that’s really how evolution works.  It’s not that species come up with traits that would serve them well, it’s that species find uses for the bizarre traits they have.

So when I say that a species can’t pass on inherited traits, it’s another way of saying that a species can’t choose to change or not change.  It’s not deliberate.  You can’t control it.  Evolution doesn’t care about what giraffes want.

But giraffes can certainly make the best of it.