The animal shown in the bottom plays an important part in Japanese mythology where they are believed to be reincarnations of the warriors who died in a major battle in Japanese history. As such these animals are revered in Japanese culture and this has led to an interesting biological phenomenon. What?Answer: These are Heikegani crabs also known as Samurai crabs for the resemblance of their shells to human faces. Fishermen often throw these crabs back into sea if they are caught. This has led to those crabs whose shells more strongly resemble human faces surviving more often resulting in an artificial (or) unnatural selection process. Manix, Rajesh, Adi, DrDate, Matti Tapaninen, Aparna, Hirak, Iam and Swapnaa got it. Well done all.
11 comments:
Heikegani crabs, and unintentional artificial selection
Heikegani crabs and artificial selection
Samurai Crabs. The biological phenomenon is "human brain’s innate ability to recognize faces and human forms on the backs of the crabs" - pareidolia
artificial selection
The animal is called Samurai Crab (Heikegani). The crabs are native of Japan, with a shell that bears a pattern resembling a human face. The local belief is that these crabs are reincarnations of the spirits of the Heike warriors defeated at the Battle of Dan-no-ura.. With the fishermen throwing the crabs with shells resembling the Samurai, and eating the ones that didn't.. they gave the former a better chance to reproduce.. An example of Artificial Selection (as opposed to Natural Selection)
Animals are Samurai crabs. The biological phenomen is that the resemblance of the crab’s carapace to the stylized face of samurai is the product of artificial selection; an evolutionary selective pressure applied by humans.
Heikegani crabs. Their shells bear a strong resemblance to human faces . Believed to be reincarnations of samurai warriors. It led to a phenomenon called artificial selection since shells with stronger resemblance were thrown back and others eaten
Reversing extinction process. Reverse selection, going against Darwinian survival of the fittest due to human protection
Heike crab
Unintentional artificial selection!I would call it natural human selection, since it is the same phenomenon that has caused the fairer sex to become fairer with each new generation.
All hail to unintentional artificial selection!
Samurai crabs - artificial selection.
@Karthik: great guess. This will be a future question for sure.
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