why are most animals single ended (lemmy.ml)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml to c/askbiologists@lemmy.world

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This is more of an evolutionary biology question but I thought I'd ask bc I couldn't fibd anything on it

Specifically what I'm wondering is why the majority of animals seem to have their brain or central nervous system located at a specific end of their body rather than near the center of mass where you think it'd be safest? I thought of this as I watched a centipede have its tail end attacked and noticed that its head and tail end look quite similar, assumedly for the purpose of fooling would be predators, and wondered why it didn't just put its brain in the middle so it wouldn't be vulnerable at the ends.

Moreover, why do we even need heads? Why did almost every animal evolve to have all their sensory organs in one spot instead of spreading them out. Why is my face where my face is basically. Are our bodies really built to be the most durable and efficient for the terrain they evolved in and why are they all so similar?

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[-] snooggums@midwest.social 9 points 7 months ago

What I remember from biology classes was that evolution tends to develop the systems equivalentto brains as close to the primary senses as possible. So brains developed in the head because that is also where visual and olfactory and other primary senses developed at the front of the organism.

It dudn'r deift away because it was alrady successful, but animals with skeletons developed skulls and other thicker bones around the brain to protect it. Same with the rib cafe protecting most of the organs, except the stomach and intestines which need room to expand when eating. This is a balance of not changing what is successful and being even more successful with some extra protection.

There are also other factors like balancing heat that lead to certain organs being in different places as well.

[-] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago

That makes a lot of sense actually, damn

this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024

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