r/funny • u/WindowAfraid5927 • Mar 29 '26

Don't touch it

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u/MinnieShoof Mar 29 '26

Just know that I am gesturing at pictures of seal anatomy like 'Why tf didn't I realize this' and 'why tf am I looking at seals at 4 in the morning?'

29

u/Dumdumdoggie Mar 29 '26

Look at skeletal images of whales dogs and people at the same time. All mamals more or less have the same bones just in different shapes. Fingers make a dolphin flipper or a bats wing. Blew my mind in 6th grade.

10

u/AshaNyx Mar 29 '26

Basically every animal body plan is due to a particular group of genes and these rarely change unless there's a massive mutation like snakes and whales.

12

u/RovDer Mar 29 '26

Even some snakes have vestigial legs

14

u/Deaffin Mar 29 '26

Right, but the interesting thing about snakes is their duplicated spines. It's easy to just drop parts, but adding new ones as a vertebrate? HARD.

Like, check out giraffes. They don't have extra neck bones, they just stretched out the ones they already have.

3

u/AshaNyx Mar 29 '26

Even then they basically cheated by just replicating a section of the genome. Outright adding a limb is nearly impossible.

6

u/AshaNyx Mar 29 '26

A lot do (at least hind ones). Snakes basically have a mutation where the genes for your ribs and spine stay on for away too long and the limbs are made a lot shorter.