Post #14114

<b>Philippine Tarsier: Its eyes are so large that there is no room for a brain. This creates a problem </b> That's why I respect Philippine tarsiers, it's for their integrity! While other primates developed, built complex social relationships and strived for the top of the food pyramid, tarsiers decided that they were happy at the very bottom. After all, the world here is simple: a couple of strange ideas, a few crutch decisions - and now you are already a king among the weak and oppressed! True, the king is painfully small: the tall, full of strength Philippine tarsier is only 16 centimeters long - it is smaller than a human palm! To be so small, the monkey had to massively miniaturize all its organs: from its legs and fur, to its heart and brain. All organs except the eyes. The tarsier's eyes are his greatest pride. And the emphasis here needs to be on the word “big”, because the diameter of the mirror of the soul can reach 16 millimeters! For reference: the average diameter of a human eye is 24 millimeters, which is only a third larger than a monkey's eye. And this despite the fact that the average person is about 100 times larger than the largest tarsier! The Filipino's eyes are not just big - they are larger than any other animal organ, including the brain. And they are truly great. The tarsier has excellent color vision and can navigate perfectly in almost complete darkness. And he doesn’t just navigate, but finds comrades, hides from predators and even gets food - nimble and secretive insects will not escape his gaze. At the same time, he does not go blind in the light. His pupils are capable of both expanding over the entire eye and shrinking to a point, allowing the eye owner to walk during the day and feel great. However, the tarsier still prefers night walks to the midday promenade. But in my personal opinion, all these improvements were not worth it. After all, for the sake of them, the monkey had to sacrifice the most important organ of the primate - the brain. The gray matter hardly fits into the skull, which already houses two huge video cameras. And they decided to completely abandon the oculomotor muscles. Therefore, monkeys rotate their heads almost 360°, like owls. It turns out that in pursuit of perfect eyes they locked themselves in an evolutionary trap. As long as they have these mirrors in their skulls, tarsiers are unable to increase the size and complexity of their brains. They are forced to be at the level of rather primitive animals, stupid even by the standards of other small insectivorous animals. And any attempt to make their eyes smaller will end disastrously for them - the animals will simply begin to get lost in the dark and die of hunger. That is, it was not integrity that locked them in a trap almost at the very bottom of the food chain, but the erroneous decision of their distant ancestors. And there seems to be no way out of this trap... Author: Yaroslav Ilyin <b>🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT