Field of Science

A morphological interpretation of traits





Evolutionary compromises drive diversity (MSU Today)
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Evolutionary compromises drive diversity (Fox 47 News)


  1. I think it would be more effective to use realistic traits. Caribbean anole lizards show a lot of morpholigical variation that could easily be illustrated in a cartoon. Or beetles. It doesn't quite click for me with a winged cat, I just think "What does that represent in the real world?" And that's probably why I'm a field biologist and you're a theoretician :)

  2. But the problem is that this animation is made up, and we wanted to make sure people do not go away thinking that we modeled actual cats, or lizards, or beetles.

    Also, can you think of six traits in beetles or lizards that can be easily displayed and changed visually? We had quite a lot of trouble coming up with this.

  3. Hmm, if you want to ensure people don't assume it's a real organism, I would go with beetles. The Caribbean anoles are too well-known (to biologists). Some easy-to-illustrate traits could be size, color, spots, shape (round to oval), antenna length, leg length, ornamentation. I think it would be obvious enough to anyone that it's not representing a real clade of beetles, but still for people like me it would make more sense to use at least hypothetically realistic traits.


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