Quantum wrote:
Sigh..... You obvously have little understanding of evolution. We didn't need long legs to survive untill reprductive age (though we probably struggled without them. We developed longer legs because it gave us an advantage.
1-A population of ancient "humans" exist but all have shorter legs.
2-An individual is born with a new allele which codes for longer legs (a mutation has occured)
3-This individual has an reproductive advantage, because of the longer legs it uses less energy gathering food. This saved energy can mean the difference between starvation and survival and/or also alow for more mating and better caring for offspring.
4-This results in the individual having more offspring than the average hominid, each offspring will inherit the allele. Over several generations the ancient "humans" with the allele make up a large percentage of the population.
5- Repeat steps 3 to 5.
After many cycles of this we get drastically longer legs because those with the mutation outcompete those around them,
getting longer legs was not about surviving but doing that little bit better than the competition. If you have any more questions please ask and i will try to answer them the next time i am on this site.