quote:
I see your point about selection but what you mention is not a mutation! There were alredy slightly darker critters in the population!
No kidding there were already slightly darker creatures in the population.
If there weren't any creatures with dark enough fur, then the predator would eat them all and they would go extinct.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that a population has to "wait" for a mutation to confer an advantage.
In actuality, it is mutations that confer slight variations within the individuals of a population that are selected or not by the environment.
IOW, they already exist within the population.
If the population had to wait for a mutation, they'd likely be SOL and go extinct if the environment changed too rapidly.
(And we do see that 99% of all life that has ever existed has, indeed, gone extinct.)
Let's pretend that we have some kind of awful, crazy government that decided to exterminate all of the people with blue eyes.
Having any eye color but blue is determined by your genes, and suddenly, having non-blue eyes suddenly has become very beneficial, even though it was pre-existing in the population.