This does not make any sense. Why would the body prefer anything over the most dense and available calorie store? Protein in muscle gives shit calories per gram, it is hard to build back and generally less available than fat: the number one energy store, doing exactly what it does.
When our ancestors faced famine, it makes sense for the body to shed as much muscle as possible, since this reduces the metabolic rate in the medium-long term.
Muscle is more metabolically active than fat. Although fat can be used up for energy more readily, but muscle takes more energy to maintain. Burning fat just to maintain (unnecessary) muscle doesn't make sense in terms of survival.
https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1096/fj.13...
https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1096/fj.14...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S216183132...
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/8/2457
For weight lifting helping decrease this: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/11/11/2824
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysio...
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00726-013-1506-0
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpendo.005...
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/mus.21780
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpregu.004...
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/10/4/423
These are just a tiny subset of the studies done - google scholar can find you many dozens more, if you desire. And, of course, the fact that these studies exist it all necessarily implies that you lose muscle mass when in energy deficit, as you will see in the control groups for them.
Was curious about this, went hunting for some rough data, this [0] suggests every kilogram of fat held can be drawn down at ~70 food-calories per day.
So someone with 25% body fat weighting 100kg (~220lb) could draw 1750 food calories per day, which strikes me as pretty ample unless they're also adding a bunch of physical activity.
It seems likely we've evolved to reduce energy expenditure in other ways when we regularly induce physical activity, too. Walk 20,000 steps or spend a couple of hours on the treadmill? Your body finds ways to reduce your energy expenditure elsewhere.