Every time I try to research about lions, tigers, leopards and other big cats, I get so many conflicting answers about where they came from and which species was there first.

For example: I have read that Cheetahs, Lions, leopards originated in Africa 3-4 million years ago, and after migrating to Asia, tigers evolved from leopards and only continued to migrate northeast and north west and never went to Africa.

However, elsewhere I have read that tigers evolved first slightly over 2 million years ago from snow leopards, and lions and cheetahs did not evolve until after that in Africa, eventually having lions come to Asia.

There are even more conflicting theories with dates differing in the millions, does anybody have a source that can answer this question with more accurate and research information?

TLDR; What continent and time period did big cats originate, who came first to earth, tiger or Lion?

Thank you!

Hey y’all what’s the deal, I’ve heard from some sources that turtles are descended from anapsids, and other sources say they descended from diapsids. Is there ongoing debate on this?

Introduced mathematics, science, fashion, art etc what's up with that? What is it about our brains that made us evolved this way in contrast to other animals, especially our fellow apes?

Just an interesting subject to me

I'm very confused, did humans evolve from apes? Did they evolve from homo erectus? I don't understand anything

Does anyone have some suggestions for a good book (preferably popular scientific-ish) on evolution nowadays? Questions like, what is the effect of human civilization on evolution of other species, but also on humans themselves? Effects of healthcare? Etc.

Was reading Science in the Soul and came across a bit where he said that she got some things wrong and some things right. I suspect Gaia is one of the things Dawkins takes issue with. Anyways was just curious what this sub's thoughts are.

This question, with different values for x and y comprises probably half of the drive-by content of this subreddit.

A lot of the answers speculate. Maybe this. Maybe that.

The answer should be "why would they?" Populations don't develop traits because some human a million years later thinks it would be a good idea. A variety of evolutionary pressures effect evolution, ranging from climate survival, disease resistance, digestion, finding food, avoiding being eaten by larger creatures, avoiding being eaten by smaller creatures, finding water, finding mates, and hundreds of more traits or specifications of these general traits.

Every gain is an adaptation of another trait. Maybe the wings you think would be cool on a bear costs them mass, which removes their ability to protect their kills from wolves. Maybe they cost hair, which removes the bear's ability to survive in their climate.

The organisms we see today have the best development for their current environment (or would have, except for humans interfering with normal cycles of evolution and extinction by removing entire genera of creatures with habitat loss regardless of their fitness).

I think a stickied post addressing this question would help visitors understand something and clean up the content. It could use my suggestions or be more professionally worded. We just see variations of it constantly, and the answers are the same, even though the wording might be different from post to post.

Seeing that throughout history many different animals have successfully been bipedal (like therapods) why is becoming fully erect so uncommon? If I am not mistaken being fully erect would have allowed therapods to have longer and more usable arms why still being able to keep balance.

There's fight or flight, both of which make sense, but what conditions us to sometimes freeze when scared?

I was thinking that there must be mutations that would be highly beneficial to an organism, but just haven't happened. For example, for a higher-level predator, like a mammal or reptile or bird, the ability to digest fur and feathers would have a huge advantage. But I'm not aware that any can. Why is this? Would a trait like this require multiple genetic mutations across several chromosomes, making it highly unlikely? Or are there other reasons that "obviously" beneficial traits haven't evolved?

and on the other hand, which are very genetically different, even though they might look similar?

Excluding primates

Over billions of years, given the right conditions - would it be possible for the genome of a dog to survive its way to becoming human?

How many species have existed in our past that would fit that description?

How many homo sapiens were there when they first evolved from a past species? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?

It seems like language is different from most evolutionarily acquired traits in that it requires the cooperation of other members of the species who have evolved the same trait. For example, good eyesight or efficient lungs would be beneficial whether or not other members of a species have it, but having the ability to speak would be useless without someone else having evolved the ability to understand you.

Are there any good explanations for the evolution of language in humans?

The advice to not show fear is often given, and for good reason. Displaying fear will make one appear weaker, increase the likelihood of others attacking, and cause self-doubt to spread. However, it is peculiar that evolution has integrated not only the feeling of fear in the body, but also its outward display. In situations of fear, we not only fight against the fear itself, which is sometimes unhelpful, but also against the outward display of fear, which is always harmful.

The Iho Eleru specimen consists of fragments of a human skull and fragments of a skeleton that were found in Iho Eleru, Nigeria in 1965. The individual to whom these fragments belonged is believed to have been male and is estimated to have lived 13,000 years ago.

What is shocking about the specimen is that its skull exhibits very archaic traits relative to the time that its owner is estimated to have lived.

Modern humans have globular craniums and practically flat brow ridges. However, the Iho Eleru specimen has an oval cranium, a protruding occipital bun, and very pronounced brow ridges; the overall shape of its cranium is very similar to that of an archaic hominin, lying between hominins as old as the Homo Erectus specimen Solo Man and the Archaic Homo Sapien specimen Omo II. To put things into perspective, Solo Man is estimated to have lived 108,000 to 117,000 years ago, and Omo II is estimated to have lived 105,000 to 195,000 years ago - yet the Iho Eleru specimen has features that are in between these two hominins despite having lived only 13,000 years ago.

Is anyone aware of this specimen's brain volume? Also, what is your general impression about the archaic morphology of this specimen and the relatively recent time that he was alive? Do you think that he was part of a human species from which West Africans partially descend?

Can someone help me understand how hormones and neurotransmitters evolved. Like they have to fit into certain receptors, be released at the right time, and produced in a certain area. All to produce these specific feelings. Like how tf does this stuff evolve?

Why the hell does it look so deformed from other fish? Stingrays are symmetrical!

I just started studying about evolution and found this on YouTube. This person explains how there are random mutations in the nature and how natural selection explains the perseverance of the best of the lot. He gives an example of a cricket who's wings made a sound and got hunted by parasitic flies and how in 20 generations they developed soundless wings.

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My question is how this change got triggered. This change points more towards an imminent danger and necessity to produce noiseless wings as their survival is dependent on it. This doesn't seem like random. It is like now there's a need for change and the change happened. What biological process triggered it? Hope my question is clear. I would highly appreciate your response on this. Thank you.

I know we don't know the answer to this question yet, but what are your thoughts?

I mean, there're some proves that eating disorders are genetically predesposed, but the mortality rate is quite high and even those who survive lets say anorexia, usually don't have children. So how did eating disorders stay still here?

And the last question, what is their 'advantage' in evolution - what is their purpose?

Happy for any response :)

I was wondering.. given the huge amount of time the dinosaurs ruled planet earth and how much time they had for evolution and specialising into different more effective ways of attack and defence, why we don't we see any hard evidence of terrestrial dinosaurs using venom. Seems like it would of been such a game changer for carnivores to avoid injury by following wounded (envenomed) prey instead of having to all out maul the prey to death.

Snakes existed in the same time frames as Dinosaurs and having a look online it seems venom seems to have come into existence around 80 million years ago.

For offensive purpose I know we would look to see hollow type teeth to inject said venom, but also thinking defensively many animals today use poison to put off carnivores from having a nibble.

Just imagine Dryosaurus having brightly coloured skin with some kind of toxin gland in its skin to ward off curious hungry carnivores like poisonous frogs today.

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All just speculation and daydreaming but I thought it'd be nice to hear peoples thoughts on the matter.

So when I was in college, I think I learned that evolution is basically this long constant process whereby any species changes over time. I also learned (or at least what I took from lecture) is that the evolution of species is essentially a probability game. That animals don't "choose" to evolve & then evolve but rather mutations spontaneously develop that can be advantageous & therefore may proliferate over generations of breeding, essentially leading to the diversification of species & a lot of the biodiversity we have.

So I want to ask, is there anything wrong with this definition? Is there I am wrong about?

I would like to know because I am not a scientist in any respect but I would like to further my own education & unfortunately on my own, I don't really have anyone to ask. Looking it up hasn't really helped either.

Thank you.

I am just genuinely curious and wondering about this. How come the first form of the human writing and communication first appeared 6,000 years ago? And, obviously, on tablets and stone, which, yes, cuneiform. Just a lot does not add up to that. And I do not understand how evolution can make sense with this. Thank you so much! Have an amazing night!

This article suggests we should accept the possibility life has emerged more than once on Earth: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/feb/15/microbes-earth-tree-of-life

Other articles suggest all of Earth's living beings originated from the same organism.

What's the general consensus among researchers? I'm guessing most believe all life came from the same organism, but want to make sure.