Re: GSAS auction was Re: Tampa Bay Aquarium Society Meeting Notice

["dominic stones" <apisto@planeteer.com>]

With regards to Dave's questions, I cannot see any evolutionary advantage in
forgetting how to parent, unless of course you had the unfortunate habit of
eating your young. If that were the case, laying the eggs and leaving them
would be far more advantageous for fry survival, wouldn't it? I know that we
are not discussing parents leaving their young here, but that's the only way
I can see any advantage in losing parenting skills. I don't think I'm into
devolution.
(I'm being kind of facetious here).

More seriously though -

As to the evolutionary value of eating your young, (after watching my
roommate's dempseys demolish their 150+ fry in a 90 gal filled with
other dempseys and giant danios), I suppose that, as
a parent fish, if you had put time and effort (body-mass, really) into
generating small reproductions of yourself, if you were convinced that they
were not going to survive - for whatever reason - it would make sense to
re-enlist the resources you had squandered (eat 'em!) so as to prepare for
another, hopefully more successful attempt at reproduction.

I don't know if i have figured anything out here - does it make any sense?

Dominic Stones
Richmond Hill,  Ontario

Dave Gomerg wrote:

>As long as I have gotten started, consider the following questions:
>
>1.  What would be the evolutionary value (if any) of forgetting how to
>parent after a few generations?
>
>2.  What would be the evolutionary value (if any) of eating your babies?
>
>When you get those figured out, you will understand why babies get eaten.
>--
>Dave Gomberg, San Francisco            mailto:gomberg@wcf.com
>Jobe's Fern and Palm Spikes FREE        http://www.wcf.com/pam
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------




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