aplright, /science/, since you're all such smartypants tell

>>9004274
Protista with flagella came close.

But your question is like asking "Why didn't animals evolve laser eyes? It's a much more effective way of hunting," or "Why didn't plants evolve flamethrowers to keep animals away?

>>9004277
Well, why didn't they?

Like combustive flight, rotating locomotion is separated by too large a valley in the fitness landscape for gene pools to cross, meaning it has a lack of useful intermediate stages.

>>9004274
Wheels are shit on unpaved road.

>>9004281
Isn't lack idea of irreducible complexity a pro-intelligent design argument, which has been largely struck from the literature on evolution?

>>9004274
I don't know, why didn't they just evolve divinity and become gods? It's a much effective way of existence.

>>9004278
Lets take your plant flamethrower.

Organisms don't choose to evolve things. Instead mutations happen and the ones that make the organism more suited to it's environment increase the chances it will pass on it's genes.

Plants are combustible so if any plant had a mutation to allow it to produce fire it would likely be destroyed in the process and thus not pass on it's genetic material.

Sounds like a great way to get the blood vessels to the wheels twisted and torn the instant you do a full rotation.

>its a much more effective way of transportation
Only if the objective is long-distance transport. Feet are much better for quick acceleration as they have more degrees of freedom (useful for uneven surfaces) and a much larger contact area with potentially slippery surfaces (e.g. wet grass).

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>>9004336
Actually, creating a chemical fire that is very short lived wouldn't harm the plant, but would harm insect wings and antennae as well as animal fur. It would also create a tiny amount of acrid smoke. That alone would be enough to deter or even seriously harm some animals. The problem is that if another mutation occurs, which allows for a longer sustained flame, it could trigger the destruction of the entire biome area, thereby killing all the other plants that only have the short duration fire.

Who knows, maybe that's happened a few times already. Insects may have done the same thing and triggered the same type of event that wiped out that mutation. Thus, we only get shit like bombardier beetles and poison plant hairs.

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golden wheel spider does use wheeled locomotion to escape predators
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltvLo2vNls0

>>9004274
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/12/this-insect-has-gears-in-its-legs/
close enough

>>9004281

Not to mention that wheels are absoute shite for anything other than going across perfectly flat terrain.

>>9004274
nature is ancap as fuck; there are no roads
it doesn't make sense to evolve wheels

>>9004362
>sanic the spider
the first autistic bug on earth

javascript:quote('9004300');

Maybe I should have specified that it's impossible in principle, just very unlikely given the nature of the fitness landscape as we understand it. In a large enough universe, you could find rotating locomotion in nature, because it's obviously not a violation of physics. But it's hard to imagine what the intermediate stages would be that improve an organism's fitness.

Not* impossible

>>9004383
It's not that hard to imagine. Maybe a legged animal develops a large wheel-like shield that protects each of its legs. Over time these shields are repurposed as weels to roll over a very flat landscape for migration. In time the legs become vestigial.

>>9004343
this, once the wheel spins, it will never grow again. So any animal with wheels should fully develop it in the uterus, and when born, rip all the vessels so it spins.

Actually, it should be possible. I imagine some bone-like mechanism. But the disadvantages are too big, the main ones being:
> A wounded/broken wheel won't heal
> It's shit on irregular ground

>>9004383
>javascript:quote('9004300');
Well that's new.

>>9004274
I know this is a troll thread but I'll answer anyways.

1: Evolution isn't any kind of conscious force with a goal in mind, it's just a side effect of how genetics and nature work. Shit that doesn't get killed passes on genes and gradually changes the species. If nothing in nature is killing all the animals with non-wheel like appendages it's not going to evolve that way.
2: Wheels are a pretty complex mechanical system for a biological organism to grow. It's hard to imagine how exactly it would actually develop.
3: Wheels are generally only efficient on surfaces that are designed for them. Wheels wouldn't do shit in the woods or underwater or in sky or on bumpy uneven surface. Basically nearly everywhere animals tend to live.

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>>9004274
back when life was just a bunch of lil niggas in water, there probably weren't any cells with "wheel"-like appendages, which lead up to their being none, due to the trait not being helpful enough to be passed on, or it may have been detrimental to their survival, never passing on at all. just some simple nat. selection via evolution
idk just a guess

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>>9004670
oh fuck i meant evolution via nat. selection woops

>>9004300
I'd differentiate between trying to make up irreducible complexity for something that DID evolve, and citing a lack of obvious intermediate steps for something that did not evolve.

"This think that happened could not have happened, ergo God of the Gaps," even if I have to make up a gap that doesn't exist.

"Here is a reason why this thing that did not happen is unlikely to have happened."

>>9004336
Dude... I was not suggesting that plants should have evolved fire defenses. I was pointing out that there is not really much reason to ask why something really unlikely to happen didn't happen.

>>9004274
No. No it is not.

The energy / DNA space needed to code for axle bearings for efficient turning would in turn require a level of detail that makes the whole organism DNA transcription inefficient.

You think this is BS? Then look up how bearings are manufactured.

>>9004490
Wouldn't it be simpler for an animal to roll as a whole? If it rolled on the side, it's head wouldn't be pointing bad directions when it gets to food.
That's all I got honestly, but such a form of locomotion would lack a lot of sersatility;

>>9004281
for most natural terrain legs are >>>> wheels.

And not only that but legs and controlling them are a much more complex task then wheels.

>>9004274
Firstly, what >>9004281 said.
But even then there could possibly be intermediate stages like with flagellum.

Secondly, >>9004292 and >>9004346 make a good point.

And as a last point, >>9004362 , Armadillo and pangolin are able to use rolling. There doesn't seem to be animal which has wheel-like rotational appendage. Though, there is atleast, as i mentioned before, flagellum, but you were asking for animals.

I would suggest you look into this article on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_systems And used it as a starting point if you want to learn more.

>>9004274
> its a much more effective way of transportation

It is not. Wheels are only good for roads and roads do not occur naturally. Legs are remarkably adaptable and wheels are not at all.

In His Dark Materials there is a species that has 4 legs in a diamond pattern, 1 front 2 middle 1 back.
It uses claws on the front and back legs to hook into seed-pods from trees and roll along.

>>9004362
>>9004380
for posterity
http://youtubedoubler.com/loU7

wheels are fuckin shit tier only good for rolling down a hill and animals that want to do that just curl themselves up in a ball

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>>9005300
My Great Grandmother told me in all seriousness that, when she was a girl, hoopsnakes were a dangerous animal that you had to watch out for. If you saw hoopsnake, you had to run uphill so it couldn't chase you.

She seemed completely sincere -- no idea if she thought it was true or was much better at lying than I suspected.

>>9004274
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_systems

there are certain animals with wheel-like appendages. certain organisms have a screw-like appendage for locomotion.

The community consensus seems to be that biologically speaking a wheel is a tough appendage to evolve with and that for larger creature legs are much more suitable overall than wheels.

How would a mountain goat be able to climb rocks with wheels?

The ability to step OVER obstacles is important, as it would require a very large wheel comparatively to step over similar sized objects that small legs could easily make it over

literally just read this:
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_systems#Disadvantages_of_wheels

>>9004274
Because it just wouldn't work. The wheel spins around an axle, rotating in the same direction an indefinite amount of times. How are you going to get blood vessels and nerves to pass from the axle to the wheel without severing the vessels and nerves as they spin around? The best you could hope for is one organism acting as the wheel(s) and another organism acting as the axle, which would be kind of cool.

Sure, you could grow some sort of chitin appendage like shellfish have, but then you would have to replace it periodically and get around some other way. Might as well just stick to legs all the time instead of wasting tons of energy and resources on a high maintenance rolling mechanism that has to be replaced regularly.