You have it a bit backwards: evolution doesn't advance through hybrids, it advances through the best-adapted individuals surviving. Like a lungfish with a mutation that gives it slightly more developed limbs, or slightly better chances at surviving outside of water. This lungfish mates with another, overall average lungfish, and their children may have that one cool parent's mutations with better access to a world most lungfish don't visit.
Repeat to the power of N (even bigger limbs, even better lungs, proto-claws, proto-fur, etc). If it gives the creature an advantage over the other members of its species, the creature has a better chance of making babies before dying, and the trait is passed on more often. There is no objective measure of what's a better or worse trait, of course — whales evolved back into water because that, too, was advantageous in a way.
Hybrids don't really have a role in the typical evolution pipeline, is the point. Sorry if this is old news, of course, just figured there's no harm in writing it out.
mothmvn t1_jbj3qzr wrote
Reply to comment by lunas2525 in Is there a fertile creature with an odd number of chromosomes? by TheBloxyBloxGuy
You have it a bit backwards: evolution doesn't advance through hybrids, it advances through the best-adapted individuals surviving. Like a lungfish with a mutation that gives it slightly more developed limbs, or slightly better chances at surviving outside of water. This lungfish mates with another, overall average lungfish, and their children may have that one cool parent's mutations with better access to a world most lungfish don't visit.
Repeat to the power of N (even bigger limbs, even better lungs, proto-claws, proto-fur, etc). If it gives the creature an advantage over the other members of its species, the creature has a better chance of making babies before dying, and the trait is passed on more often. There is no objective measure of what's a better or worse trait, of course — whales evolved back into water because that, too, was advantageous in a way.
Hybrids don't really have a role in the typical evolution pipeline, is the point. Sorry if this is old news, of course, just figured there's no harm in writing it out.