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Which came first?

  • #21
Back on topic. This thread is not a debate between on how the plant was created. It's about why it looks like a snake.

There will be no warnings before your post is deleted.
 
  • #23
did venus flytraps evolve to look like tipiwitchets? Marinate on that.
 
  • #24
Yea I didn't really want to start an arguement. Its just a HUGE coincidence that Darlingtonia look like Snakes? o.o I thought there was something connected ya know? Just like a nepenthes with a tounge under the lid. There is another one with a forked appendage like Darlingtonia, [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nepsumatra3.jpg"] here is a better view of it..[/URL]

I think it's more about humans wanting to see a similarity between the two. I've never really seen much of a similarity between the cobra and the cobra plant.

Jason
 
  • #25
Someone had to do it and it wasn't me this time! :D
On the cacti forum when you type the word "evolve" or "evolved" into a post it comes up as "against forum rules" instead of "******" or something. Curiously other than profanity this is the only word I've found so far that does this. It makes discussing things clearly rather silly at times. LOL!

True I never saw the cobra plant as really looking like a cobra with the flaring hood and all that. To me it kinda looks like a mutated S. psittacina. Perhaps a single colony of the species back in the good old days isolated and propagated itself and here we are.

What the heck is a "tipiwitchets"?
 
  • #26
I think there is a functional correlation between the two... the serpentine posture of Darlingtonia comes from the simplicity and mechanical resilience of helical forms, which is also ubiquitous in the ergonomics of snakes (climbing, striking - even writhing is a three-dimensional helix on a 2D plane over time.)
As for the tongue, that's probably largely coincidence. Forked things are easy to make with growth meristems, and an accessible way of increasing surface area of filamentous, low-volume structures. It just happens that both the snake's tongue and the "tongue" of the Darlingtonia have functions where surface area is a desirable feature; for snakes, it gives a greater sampling area for their olfactory receptors, and for Darlingtonia it diffuses more of the plant's luring scent and provides a larger landing area for flying prey. The tongues and similar protrusions of certain Nepenthes likely have a totally different function - that is, making an area of extremely narrow, poor footing which is both directly above the pitfall and is separated from safer regions of the pitcher by a single, easily blocked path. As far as I've observed, these tongues are usually heavily baited so that prey concentrate on them; the combination of a precarious position and crowding makes capturing insects much more reliable.
Evolution doesn't require the Darlingtonia to be able to see snakes, because evolutionary processes don't need to know in advance what the utility of a certain adaptation is. Have you ever heard of the "guess-and-check" method in your math class? Basically, evolution picks new forms more or less randomly based on simple variations of the parent form, and then relies on the virtues and pitfalls of the new forms to weed the bad ones out. The ancestors of Darlingtonia stumbled onto that shape because it was easy to find by chance from wherever they were before, and then the offspring that looked like snakes did a good job at reproducing. They didn't "see" that a snake-like form was worthwhile - if anything, they experienced it directly when they sprouted and grew snake-shaped leaves.
I think they chose cobra for the name since the "head" of the Darlingtonia doesn't have the typical flattened, wedge shape of most snakes. From the front, it has a silhouette reminiscent of a hooded cobra. Or maybe the person that coined the name just didn't know of many types of snakes, and cobra was just the word that sounded good.
~Joe

PS - Re: the evolution vs. creationism debate, I also think it belongs in another thread - probably another forum. Halt's original inquiry assumes that evolution was the mechanism which caused the correlation between snakes and Darlingtonia. The question isn't about the merits of evolution, just why this particular case worked out the way it did, given an evolutionary process.

PPS - Tipitwitchet is another, somewhat archaic name for VFTs, because the leaves "twitch" when stimulated.

PPPS - That got long!

PPPPS - Interactive demonstrations! Biomorphs, a simulation originally created by Richard Dawkins.
 
  • #27
I agree with Dr. Wurm. If any correlation exists between the cobra plant and an actual snake, it would be a very weak one. I wonder if we would see the similarity less often if the plant was named Moose Lily lol
 
  • #28
The fact that darlingtonia's look like snakes is an accumulation of beneficial genetic abnormalities.
It's very simple.
Deers like to munch on the plants and birds peck holes in the plants structure to steal insects.
Looking like a snake makes animals wary and helps to ward them off.
 
  • #29
Um, D. Muscipula, In the Savage Garden, Peter D'Amato observes that the locals call Darlingtonia sites "Deer Licks"! A deer lick is just another way of saying "aplacewheredeerliketoeatandtheycomethereveryfrequently" Besides, deer from Oregon have never seen a cobra, so how do they know what to look for and be wary of?:D Maybe they look like that to be another 'hybrid' trap, like drosophyllum, combo of pitfall and lobsterpot! Maybe they're a mutant Psittacina that decided to supersize, grow upright, and change their flowers into a unique type of flower! I was imagining there.

Happy Growing!
Aslan
 
  • #30
I'd like to know the origin of the name "Cobra Lily" and does anyone know how far back it goes? Maybe the name was invented by a certain former CP nursery that shall go unnamed, because I agree with those who don't see much cobra in it.
 
  • #31
The first animal that comes to mind when I stare at one which it may possibly resemble very vaguely would be a walrus. A large round bald top and then a long drooping moustache...but then again maybe that is just me...I propose a subspecies/cultivar/soemthing... Darlingtonia walrasia!
 
  • #32
Maybe they look like that to be another 'hybrid' trap, like drosophyllum, combo of pitfall and lobsterpot!

That sounds about right to me. My Darlingtonia has put out some adult-sized pitchers this year and last and I'm really amazed to see up close how they do their thing. The head of Darlingtonia is a far superior analog to the lids of Sarracenia. Where the Sarr's lid just keeps rain to a minimum and maybe occasionally stops a bug from flying straight out, the top of a Darlingtonia pitcher is almost wholly translucent and looks more like an escape route than the actual entrance. Of course I'd read that and seen pictures of it before, but it's different to look at a pitcher top-down and see through it down into the depths of the pitfall.
~Joe

PS - What nursery are you thinking of, Bruce? You've got me really curious. The name seems older than the era of most CP nurseries to me. (Would it be breaking the rules to mention another nursery not in the context of buying plants or what they sell? Seems like a borderline case. Mods?)
 
  • #33
The Biomorphs is pretty neat.
 
  • #34
I'll check the rules and see if there is a conflict.
 
  • #35
I think the name cobra could have come along from the plant being described in literature, not from actual observations.
Think about it, long "tongues" emerging out of the bottom of bulbous heads that stands straight and in a helical/curled fashion.
Sounds kind of like a snake, doesn't it? But when you actually observe the plant, you may not correlate the details to a snake's as much as you would when you read about them.

It's a possibility...???
 
  • #36
So, which do you think came first? The snake plant, or the snake reptile?

Plants evolved long before reptile. Carnivorous plants evolved not long after.

Given the geographic locality of Darlingtonia and the geologic nature of the region I would guess that the "proto-Darlingtonia" evolved pretty early on. However the "proto-Darlingtonia" likely looked nothing like the current Darlingtonia. In fact the "proto-Darlingtonia" was likely a wide spread (Pangea) plant that was also the "proto-Sarracenia" and the "proto-Heliamphora." Geographic isolation allowed different populations of this LUCA to diverge to the end points we see today. Given the time frame early snakes had evolved before Pangea split and if I had to guess the divergence of Sarracenia and Darlingtonia probably began around the time Laurasia formed.

So, simple answer. Snakes came first.


As for why the look similar. Nothing more than pure chance. The plants were not "trying" to look like a snake, there is nothing directed about evolution. No foresight.

People thought the plants looked "kind of" like snakes. People see all kinds of things; faces on Mars, profiles on cliffs, Jesus on grilled cheese sandwiches... People just see things sometime. So, Darlingtonia looked a little like snakes to some people. Reared up snakes. And what snake is known for rearing up??... The cobra. Nothing more complicated than that.
 
  • #37
The nursery I was referring to is Peter Pauls, which seems to have (thankfully) ripped off its last customer and sold its last poached plants and moss. The guy had some great merchandising abilities and "Cobra Lily" just seems more like merchandising than like a name that developed "naturally".
 
  • #38
LOL - I think Peter Pauls' should be an exception to the rule just for having as much negative press as they already do.
~Joe
 
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