• Question: why is humans so different but then some species of animals look the same?

    Asked by 286genp45 to Remsha, Oliver, Lisa, Kieran, Fiana, David on 7 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Oliver

      Oliver answered on 7 Nov 2018:

      Great question! I grew up on a farm and I remember seeing big differences between the different breeds of cattle we had. Big differences in the animal-bird world is particularly notable between males and females. But I also remember sheep and thinking they all looked alike! I wonder if it is that we are so used to looking at other people more than other animals (especially individually) it is just that don’t notice the differences in some animals (such as sheep) and we do in other animals (such as each other). However, there seems more to it than that (while perhaps that might account for part of it). We seem to have evolved differences in facial features and also the ability to recognise differences in faces much more than non-human animals, birds and the like. It has been hugely significant in our evolution in terms of developing societies – from early clans to modern societies. With our differences in features and also our abilities to recognise such differences, social interaction would be impossible, or at least, very problematic! For some interesting, and advanced, work on this, see: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms5800

    • Photo: Kieran

      Kieran answered on 7 Nov 2018:

      I agree with Oliver (below). I also work with cows and can easily see differences between individuals. However my friends only see black and white patches! In fact, that same monotonous feature helps Zebras confuse lions trying to catch them for example.

      In addition, if animals are very closely related they do not have the same amount of genetic variation – and therefore will look the same. Imagine a pure bred dog, the puppies will look like their parents, whereas with a mongrel the pups will look like a lucky dip!

    • Photo: Remsha Afzal

      Remsha Afzal answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      Its because we as humans are just not used to looking very closely at animals. Our brains are very good at identifying and figuring out differences in other human faces immediately, but for animals, unless we pay special attention, our brains are happy with just categorizing animals very generally based on their shape and color rather than little details of their faces. If you stay with animals long enough though, you begin to recognize their differences.

Comments