Evolution: more convergence (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, February 19, 2022, 15:45 (1007 days ago) @ David Turell

Insects that suck liquid food:

https://www.sciencealert.com/new-map-charts-the-milky-way-s-dramatic-history-of-violenc...

"Whether nectar-sucking butterflies or blood-sucking mosquitoes - the ingestion of liquid food has long been known for many insects and other arthropods. A research team now shows that millipedes also use a sucking pump to ingest liquid food. A sucking pump has thus evolved independently in different groups of organisms over several 100 million years. In the process, astonishingly similar biomechanical solutions for ingesting liquid food have evolved in widely distant animal groups.

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"Using high-resolution tomography as well as histological methods and electron microscopy, the researchers discovered a sucking pump in millipedes that is strikingly similar to those of insects. It consists of a chamber that is widened by strong muscles to suck in liquid food. "Together with the protractible mouthparts the sucking pump enables these millipedes to ingest more or less liquid food," explains Leif Moritz, a doctoral student at the University of Bonn and the LIB."

Comment: this diversity of insects with the same mechanism, called convergent evolution is a strong evidence for design against chance development.