Wherever They Go, These Spiders Always Evolve the Same Way

A gold-colored stick spider. (Credit: George Roderick) We often assume that evolution is entirely unpredictable. But, that's not always the case. Some evolutionary changes seem to be at least partly hardwired into a species' DNA. For an example, we can look to ecomorphs, species that occupy the same habitat and look generally alike, despite not being very closely related to each other. In some cases, species will repeatedly evolve the same characteristics as they move from one location to another, as if it were predestined.