Many bird and reptile species use

Answer choices

1. A

   No Impact4% picked this

   Like its potential predators, the common ancestor of bird and reptile species would have lacked the anatomy necessary

   This maybe even deepens the paradox, because now we're even more confused by the hissing behavior in these ancestors. THEY couldn't hear it. Their PREDATORS couldn't hear it. What was the point of this hissing? Why did it evolve? This answer provides no answers.

   4%
2. B

   No Impact14% picked this

   The common ancestor of bird and reptile species would probably have employed multiple threat devices

   This doesn't offer any explanation for why these ancestors possessed an ability to hiss. It's saying they probably had several ways to deter predators, but as far as we know, hissing was not one of those (since the predators couldn't hear the hissing). So we still have no explanation for these ancestors hissed.

   14%
3. C

   Correct72% picked this

   The production of a hissing sound would have increased the apparent body size of the common ancestor of

   Why this is right

   We can use this answer to complete our first blank: 1. Yes, the predators couldn't hear the hissing, but the hissing still worked as a deterrent to predators because .... the hissing made the birds and snakes look bigger, which scares off predators.

   Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   72%
4. D

   Cheating the Paradox6% picked this

   The use of hissing as a threat device would have been less energetically costly than other threat behaviors available to the common

   This answer helps explain why you'd evolve hissing as a predator deterrent: it's less energetically costly. That's a good thing. But to use this answer, we'd have to act like the hissing was a predator deterrent (a threat device). We were told that predators would have been unable to hear the hissing, so we have no reason to believe that hissing was used as a threat device.

   6%
5. E

   No Impact5% picked this

   Unlike most modern bird and reptile species, the common ancestor of these species would have

   In addition to the fact that any predators these ancestors did have couldn't hear the hissing, this answer is telling us that there really weren't that many predators to begin with. Cool, so these ancestors had very few predators, and those predators couldn't hear the hissing. So it sounds like the hissing had nothing to do with predators. So .... why did this ancestor evolve the ability to hiss? This answer provides no answer to that question.

   5%