Practice question · Multiple choice
Lorenz's goslings followed him. If imprinting is an adaptation for recognising your mother, why is the mechanism loose enough to accept an Austrian zoologist?
Hints
- Ask how often, in a nest, the first moving thing is anything other than the mother.
- A rule is only as specific as it needs to be. What was the environment guaranteeing?
Show the answer
D. Because for a gosling that cheap rule was almost always right
Why
Evolution buys rules that are just good enough. 'Follow the first large moving thing' was free and effectively never wrong in a nest, so no finer discrimination was worth paying for. Lorenz did not defeat the mechanism, he stepped into a gap the world had never previously opened.
Practise Imprinting and Sensitive Periods
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More questions on Imprinting and Sensitive Periods
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