Mushroom or alien life form?

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by xilman

Fugu is another notorious example of a foodstuff which is both edible and lethal.

As are some snakes and quite a few other animals.
(Although in a different manner.)

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

As are some snakes and quite a few other animals.
(Although in a different manner.)

Paul's sus scrofa reference was presumably along those lines too. I had to look up what sus scrofa is.

The natural selection mechanism which has made many animals and a few plants attempt to attack and kill, or at least incapacitate, creatures which want to eat them before they have a chance to do so, is pretty obvious to me. Plants and animals which allow themselves to be eaten but do the eater harm after the fact presumably evolved like that because of the tendency for creatures to learn from their friends what is safe to eat and what isn't. However, species which are toxic but look similar to other species which are perfectly edible are puzzling to me from an evolutionary point of view.

[bsquared]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

However, species which are toxic but look similar to other species which are perfectly edible are puzzling to me from an evolutionary point of view.

Look at it from the point of view of the edible species.

[firejuggler]

as long as the thing didn't try to hug your face, you are safe in assuming it's a mushrooms

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by bsquared

Look at it from the point of view of the edible species.

Ahah! I hadn't thought of that. Yes, of course. The edible ones found it less costly to evolve to look like the dangerous ones than to develop toxin for themselves. You see something similar in harmless snakes which have evolved to resemble venomous species now I come to think of it.

[bsquared]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

Ahah! I hadn't thought of that. Yes, of course. The edible ones found it less costly to evolve to look like the dangerous ones than to develop toxin for themselves. You see something similar in harmless snakes which have evolved to resemble venomous species now I come to think of it.

Yep, in fact last summer I came across one of these. It did do a most impressive impression of a rattlesnake.

Edit:
A bit of googling turned up the term for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batesian_mimicry

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

Paul's sus scrofa reference was presumably along those lines too. I had to look up what sus scrofa is.

Good, you learned something. Mission accomplished.

[Batalov]

Computational biologists of the world, unite!

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Batalov

Computational biologists of the world, unite!

Dyslectics of the world, untie!

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Dyslectics of the world, untie!

(I'm not channeling D, I'm not channeling D...)


(You are channeling R, U 'R channeling R...)

[Batalov]

S.scrofa genome was sequenced at Sanger, so Paul knows what he's talking about. (I am too lazy to look up the author list, but I suspect to see some familiar faces there.)

Please send your enquiries/reports/comments to pig-help@sanger.ac.uk.