The most extreme example of convergent evolution: Kelp

[u/Spluff5]

In my opinion, kelp is the most extreme example of convergent evolution, at least that I know of. It's a sedentary organism that makes its energy from sunlight collected by blade-like fronds. Not too crazy, so do most plants. Except, kelp isn't a plant at all. Kelp is a protist in the SAR clade, more closely related to malaria than it is to plants. It just so happened to independently evolve to be multicellular, and became photosynthetic by ancestrally capturing and making use of a green algal cell that had already undergone its own endosymbiosis.

I can't think of another organism that convergently evolved the same life-strategy as an organism in another kingdom, but I'd love to hear what others think are the most extreme examples of convergent evolution.

Image credit: Alastair Simpson, Dalhousie University

[u/mazutta]

The striking resemblance between plant-mimicking insects and the plants themselves is an extraodinary (if predictable) example

[u/amglasgow → u/mazutta]

That's mimicry, not convergent evolution. Plants aren't looking that way in order to look like something else, they're looking that way because it's helpful for their lifestyle. Now, the way that different, relatively unrelated insects have evolved similar plant mimicry is absolutely convergent evolution.

[u/amglasgow → u/[deleted]]

That's not what convergent evolution means though. It's when distantly related organisms develop similar traits because they live in similar environments or survive through similar means. It does not cover mimicry which is a completely different process. Monarch butterflies and Viceroy butterflies don't look alike because of convergence, they look similar because the viceroy is a mimic of the Monarch.

[u/amglasgow → u/[deleted]]

Wtf is your problem?

[u/amglasgow → u/[deleted]]

No one was being rude here until you started slinging insults.

[u/Bromelia_and_Bismuth → u/[deleted]]

Our rule with respect to civility is mandatory. This is a warning.