The fight or flight response is described as :
Wondering how prehistoric is this response in life forms ? Since plants do not move or take “flight” do they have an equivalent response ? Whats the earliest known lifeform to have this response ?
If you poke an amoeba, it will move away from you… but I don’t think that’s what you were looking for. Are you talking about primitive animals with a brain and a nervous system?
Although it may not be what the OP is looking for, I think it illuminates the answer. Moving away from danger is such a strongly adaptive survival strategy that any creature that it would be incorporated at all levels of evolution. So if the Amoeba doesn’t count, the answer would be the first creature that has enough biological architecture to fit their definition.
No the presence of a brain and nervous system is not necessary. I am trying to understand if the earliest life (some say it was microbes that left signals of their presence 3.7 billion years back ) or the cyanobacteria that came later had the “fight or flight response”
Thank you. Exactly!!
I am trying to answer : If any or all entities that were (or are) alive or sentient have the “fight or flight response” ?
I’m unsure what evidence there would be to prove whether a creature did or didn’t have a fight-or-flight response. It’s an automatic response to a threat.
Perhaps the fact that a family of creatures has survived the longest would let you assume they must have had this response, or they wouldn’t have survived. So based on that theory, I would go with the Horseshoe Crab since most scientists agree it is the oldest living species still around today.
The question is if “organisms”/“lifeforms” had this “automatic response” from the very beginning. Or did organisms evolve this response over time.
I am not sure about what evidence we’d have. I guess, we’ll never know.
Perhaps if you were an Apex Predator, you wouldn’t need to evolve it, but what animal started as an Apex Predator?
It looks like the first mobile organisms were at least 2.1 billion years old.
Of course no one can know whether that movement included a move away from danger reflex, or if it was just a move towards food reflex, but I suspect that the move away from danger evolved pretty quickly. Beyond that I think its likely to be a continuum of adaptive strategies to avoid danger, with no clear place to draw a line and say “this is fight or flight”.
How about aiptasia, AKA glass anemone? They will curl up it touched, will eat very small creatures like brine shrimp, and sting coral that are too close.
Depends on your standard for “equivalent”…
It might be more interesting to consider what animals exhibit any of the three “fight, flight, freeze” responses. For example, I know rodents will do any of the three, depending on the situation. I suspect all mammals will also. (Can anyone think of a counter example?)
Are there older clades that have all exhibit all three responses?