Animal coloration provided important early evidence for evolution by natural selection, at a time when little direct evidence was available. Three major functions of coloration were discovered in the
Natural selection has driven the ptarmigan to change from snow camouflage in winter to disruptive coloration suiting moorland in summer.
Selective breeding transformed teosinte's small spikes (left) into modern maize (right). Darwin argued that evolution worked in a similar way.
Convergent evolution of snow camouflage in Arctic hare, ermine, and ptarmigan provided early evidence for natural selection.
Hugh Cott's drawings of 'coincident disruptive coloration' formed "persuasive arguments" for natural selection. Left: active; right: at rest, marks coinciding.
Alternatives to Darwinian evolution have been proposed by scholars investigating biology to explain signs of evolution and the relatedness of different groups of living things. The alternatives in que
Coloration evidence for natural selection
…natural selection must be taking place. But he lacked an explanation either for genetic variation or for heredity, both essential to the theory. Many alternative theories were accordingly considered by biologists, threatening to undermine Darwinian evolution. Some of the first evidence was provided by Darwin's contemporaries…
The mediaeval great chain of being as a staircase, implying the possibility of progress: Ramon Llull's Ladder of Ascent and Descent of the Mind, 1305
Louis Pasteur believed that only living things could carry out fermentation. Painting by Albert Edelfelt, 1885
Henry Fairfield Osborn claimed in 1918 that Titanothere horns showed a non-adaptive orthogenetic trend.
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, drawn by Jules Pizzetta, 1893