Posted by Greg Knoell on April 26, 2002 at 17:17:36:
In Reply to: Re: Diversionary tactics... posted by Jaffo on April 26, 2002 at 07:18:43:
I see, and I agree. Mimicry is a simle way to explain things, but most often there are many other, larger contributing, factors that affect evolution. And as Kenny said, our theories are just that and unitl time travel is capable we will never know for absolute sure.
Also we have to keep in mind that all animals in a very general sense (if we buy into the evolutionary theroy) have had the same amount of time to evolve. It is an ongoing process, sometimes for a particular species the rate slows down or seens up. Some snakes have been fortunate to live in areas that have not changed much or they have migrated to areas where the unique traits that they own are still functional for survival. These are more primitive species still or species which have changed little. If anything, as we are comparing rattlesnakes to other snake species, they have had less time to evolve their distinctive traits than other more primitive species, which have probably been around longer that any type of crotalus.
