Deviously Darwinian: 6 Strange Evolutionary Phenomena

Everyone knows about insects that camouflage themselves as leaves. But did you know that some species of spider, butterfly, and frog resemble bird droppings? What better way to avoid becoming lunch than by disguising yourself as a mound of fecal matter? Other organisms use mimicry to attract rather than repel: certain orchids resemble—and smell like—female flies and wasps. They are pollinated when a male insect attempts to copulate with them.

Wearing bright orange usually signifies one thing in the human world: residence at a correctional facility. In the lower orders of the animal world, orange, and other bright colors like red and yellow, signify scaryness of a different sort. Like: “If you eat me, you will be vomiting for the next day or so. If you don’t die,” or “Back off, or I will sting the bejeezus out of you.” The phenomenon is known as aposematism. Some nocturnal millipedes even advertise their toxicity by way of bioluminescence.

Nature strikes the weirdest bargains, like the mutualistic arrangement between some species of termites and the protozoans that live in their guts. The protozoans get a home and a constant supply of wood chips. In exchange, the protozoans help the termites derive nutrition from cellulose in the wood. Termites even share their symbionts with other members of their colony, dispensing them in a sort of probiotic smoothie from their hind ends.

As gorgeous as it is, the male peacock’s tail is a ridiculous encumbrance. And that’s the point…by displaying his ability to survive while hauling around what is essentially a feathery Porsche, he demonstrates his fitness to potential mates. Despite what popular bromides would have you believe, it is, actually, the size of the wave in this case. This seeming deviation from the parsimony of evolution is called sexual selection.

Axolotls, a type of salamander, never fully metamorphosize. That is to say: they are essentially larvae for life, though they can reproduce. This phenomenon, known as neotenization, or the retention of juvenile features into adulthood, appears situationally in some other species of salamander. If fully maturing—and thus taking to the land—would put the salamanders at risk due to food shortages or high numbers of predators, they remain in a state of arrested development.

Hybridization in nature is actually more common than was previously thought. Ligers may not pop up in nature due to the geographical separation of lions and tigers, but a new species of monkey discovered in 2003 had evidence of baboon ancestry in its mitochondrial DNA. In 2010, scientists proposed that a species of fruit bat was actually derived from hybridization between two other bat species. And in 2012, a new species of monkey flower, the result of hybridization, was discovered in Scotland.