Historian's fallacy

Biological Parallel

Lemmings migrating over cliffs aren't suicidal—their ancestral navigation systems evolved in environments without such hazards, and natural selection hasn't caught up to novel landscapes. Invasive cane toads in Australia exhibit maladaptive behavior (consuming toxic native prey) that would have been fitness-enhancing in their native South American range. Organisms are optimized for past environments, not current ones; their "errors" reflect evolutionary time lags, not poor decision-making with available information.