Why have we not evolved wheels?

Bacteria have evolved rotary motors where fluid drive makes no road preparation necessary. Wheels on land require preparation of the surface so there are no holes deeper than 1/3 the diameter of the wheel. Wings were the logical next step for land animals. Feet make us into all terrain vehicles! Spiders an geckos can crawl over your head. People can climb mountains that a mountain goat would slip and fall on. Legs are the natural next step (pun intended.) I see your point, but nature is the the logical judge. If there are no wheels when nature can evolve rotary electric motors, then there is a good reason for not having wheels.

Hi again; Here is the deal. When evolution fails, there is only a single mutant that has the change. That creature dies, usually at a young age because it is a bad change. When there is a success, there are BILLIONS of creatures. Look at a "backbone" to protect nerve connections or lungs to allow land life. It is easy to find millions of examples of those billions of creatures. But, what chances are there to find ONE single failed creature that was not fully developed when it died? Very little chance. Does that make sense?

You might say: Because it's impossible. How would such a wheel evolve? Many intermediate steps would be required, but until the proto-wheel became functional (semi-techie talk coming up here), it would be useless baggage offering no selective advantage.

Just one problem. Some critters already have evolved wheels, sort of. Take the mother-of-pearl moth, Pleurotya ruralis. While in the larval stage, this bug is generally content to amble along in the we'll-get-there-when-we-get-there manner of all caterpillars. However, when sufficiently startled, P. ruralis hoists itself into a wheel shape and rolls out of harm's way — up to five full revolutions at 40 times its normal walking speed. (OK, so I previously denied there were hoop snakes. Who said anything about hoop caterpillars?)

You're not impressed. "Armadillos, tumbleweeds, freaking rocks roll," you say. "What I want to see is a creature with a wheel and axle."

Coming right up. The bacterium Escherichia coli, among others, moves by spinning whiplike filaments called flagella like tiny propellers. The typical flagellum is rotated up to several hundred times per second by what is basically an organic electric motor. We know it spins (rather than, say, twisting back and forth like a washing machine agitator) because researchers glued down an E. coli flagellum and the critter's body spun around like an eggbeater. If this thing isn't a wheel, it's pretty darn close. For an illustration, see www.arn.org/docs/mm/flag_labels.jpg. (This phenomenon is often used to make an argument about intelligent design to which Cecil doesn't subscribe, but our interest here is in the illustration, not the argument.)

You object: "Who cares about a germ? A more complex creature couldn't evolve the wheel. Every time the thing turned, the nerves and blood vessels serving it would get hopelessly twisted." Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould makes essentially this argument in his book Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes.

But this may not be an insurmountable obstacle. A flesh-and-blood wheel might use the umbilical hookup found on some merry-go-rounds. Tape one end of a piece of ribbon to a tabletop and the other to the bottom of a compact disc. Turn the CD over so that the ribbon drapes over the side. Now move the CD so that it "orbits" the ribbon clockwise, at the same time rotating the disc clockwise, two rotations per orbit. (Not the easiest thing to explain without diagrams, but think of it as an IQ test.) The wheel turns, but the ribbon doesn't twist. Would it be easy for a living wheel to evolve something along these lines? Maybe not, but who's to say it's impossible?

"I give up," you say. "Why didn't animals evolve wheels?" Best guess: no interstates. Wheels are fine if you've got roads but next to useless on rough terrain. For quick starts, stops, turns, climbing, etc., legs are hard to beat. (For more, see McGeer, "Principles of Walking and Running," in Advances in Comparative and Environmental Physiology, volume 11, 1992.) We've got plenty of roads now, though, and natural selection presumably continues apace, for us as well as our forest friends. Aeons hence, who knows? There may be a whole new meaning for the expression, "Hey, nice wheels."

I have actually thought about this.

Try to imagine a biological structure allowing for not just free, but powered 360 degree motion. How would muscle and bone achieve this? Then you have to consider control so your wheels don't slip out under you, braking so you can stop on a dime, and a strong muscle suspension system to get through rocky terrain and up uneven hills. Does that really sound more efficient and simpler than just having legs?

"Plenty of kids use heels with integral wheels to zoom around very much more efficiently than walking. They need not interfere with climbing etc" - Those are machined. Also, have you ever tried to climb a mountain with roller skates on?

"We were hunter gatherers.. Telescopic eyes and wheels for speed would have been good. Especially since the eyes exist elsewhere in higher creatures" - Again, those wheels, assuming we could have evolved them, would have been a great hindrance in any terrain except on concrete roads. There are no natural concrete roads. This is why the Military is experimenting with quadruped robots for scouting and carrying supplies.

Full range of motion (360 degrees, forward and backward, constantly) would be nearly impossible to achieve through muscular control. I think that sort of evolution is still billions of years in the future. You could say to that, then, why haven't we evolved telescopic eyes that can see deep into space? Same thing. A "living wheel" on an organism is much more complicated than you think.

wheels would be very hard for biology: concider this: a wheel would either have to be made of a really tough material, or flesh, either way flesh would be teared apart, plus how would it become motioned?, biology has to this date found no way of magnetism (which is primary drive for whels) even if you found a way to move the wheel you could not feed it with blood because the constant spinning would tear blood vessels apart, and an organism with a basic really basic wheel would not go very well, it took us a long time to make self motion wheels (automoviles or trains) to be faster than us, concider that on a evolutionary scale, the beings with primitive wheels would not last very long, but no beings will exist science there is no viable biological way of mooving a wheel

simply a weel is too hard to evolve and to energy guzzler in primitive stages to be good for life forms

360 degree motion using only muscle and bones is pretty hard. And if you break one, you would be pretty unstable. Also think about the "grip" of the wheels. What happens if it got worn away? And how would animals sleep?

Also, swimming would be hard, not to mention bumpy ground.

I agree with Jessica, we don't need wheels. I also believe that wheels would make climbing, swimming, just doing average hunter-gatherer things rather difficult. I can't think of an animal that would be better off with those pesky things.

Great one Al!

Shalom,

The chameleon's eyes are almost like wheels but we have invented things faster than they could ever have evolved by natural selection hence nature, (G-d), hasn't bothered to do it for us. He did say that there is no telling what we will do next! (paraphrasing but it is in the Bible!)

Shalom My friend and brother,

Eli

How can you improve on what is basixlly a circular shape, it's applications are endless....The wheel, as in an automobile wheel? How about a hover craft, which would make the wheel as we know it, obsolete!

Are you trying to and/or in support of enhancing life or complicating life?

Seeing one advantage ahead of numerous disadvantages isn't going to bring any evolution. Even the dumbest animal wouldn't go for it.

Must be you working on your paper to support it.