Abstract

Biomimetics often treats convergent evolution as the strongest sign that a biological solution is general. That inference is safest when the constraint does not counter-adapt. Hosts do. In coevolved host-interface systems, recurrence alone cannot tell us whether a solution is translatable. Biomimetic transferability depends first on two axes: conservation of the host target and versatility of the attacking lineage. A conserved target behaves, for translational purposes, like a biochemical constraint, a broad-host parasite has already tested its mechanism across biological variation. The window narrows when the target is taxonomically local, or when the mechanism has become a private molecular conversation inside a narrow dyad. Haematophagous feeders, intracellular protozoans, specialist helminths, and polydnavirus-bearing parasitoid wasps therefore do not offer the same kind of biomimetic object. Some yield molecules, some vulnerability maps, some contextual principles, and some only architecture or analogy. The point is not to mine coevolved systems less, but to stop mistaking coevolutionary success for biomimetic portability.

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