Regarding natural selection, why have anteaters evolved so specific?

Question

when there were other food sources around besides sticking their nose into a hole to get ants. If it is just that they prefer ants, so that would mean that preference is a factor in evolution and not just necessity?

Answer 1

I don't think preference is a factor in evolution.

Perhaps to be able to eat ants you have to have a specialized mouth and digestive system, and those adaptions mean you can no longer eat 'normal' food.

Ants are very plentiful so they wouldn't have any trouble finding enough to eat.

Kristy, this is good question and you'd probably get more knowledgeable answers if you posted it in the biology forum. Alternative section people are more into ghosts than science.

Answer 2

Because Jesus created it that way.

Answer 3

Preference most certainly IS a strong factor in evolution.  The most powerful and obvious example is mating selection.

I don't know the specific answer about the anteater, but we see countless examples of animals with strange adaptations which seem to be "going to extremes" to give the animal a certain ability.  This is related to what we call a niche.  Certain behaviors, preferences, or characteristics may cause a species to have a unique lifestyle.

Unfortunately, too, most animals are what we would call...well,...dumb.  If you change one factor in their world they become extinct because of being unable to make the adjustment.  The green sea turtles insist on swimming to the same islands every year to lay their eggs, (the Azores).  We can't make them change their habits.  These islands are sinking.  It will spell doom for the turtles when that happens, unless a couple luck out and find some other island.

Some other extremes driven by eating habits: hummingbirds, bats, giraffes. cheetahs.

Answer 4

I've got a LOT of questions like yours that I want to ask God some day!! For example....FLEAS !!!!!!!! Couldn't He have made them so that they don't bite people and animals!!!! ??And why does it make us feel like "murderers" having to kill them so they'll stop biting us!!?? I wonder if there really is a" Peaceable Kingdom"!! I hope so!! (but it's not in Florida!!!)

Answer 5

An excellent discussion of natural selection can be found in: