Saturday, April 26, 2014

Mother Nature remains #1 in Design

You've heard of chameleons; they change color to blend in or camouflage themselves to avoid predators.  They aren't the only animal to do this; there are various species that mimic others to protect themselves or to hunt.  

What is rather unexpected, however, is to find a plant that biomimics.  Even crazier, and the first of its kind to be discovered, is a vine that doesn't just mimic one specific alternate (by any measure a surprise given that plants cannot see what they are mimicking) but multiple alternates. So, the vine, in some way as yet to be determined by scientists studying it, senses the shape, size, color and even the veins of the host plant's leaves in order to camouflage itself.  Now THAT'S good design.

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