11Peppered Moths
Peppered moths evolved to blend in with tree bark. Then the industrial revolution covered all the trees with soot, so they stood out like a sore thumb and got eaten by birds. This created a selection pressure towards black pigment making them darker. They are now lighter again after pollution regulations cut down sooty coal emissions.
12Sea cucumber
Sea cucumbers spit out their guts via their anus as a defense mechanism. Also since pearlfish has no defense mechanism of their own, they hide from predators by burrowing into a sea cucumber's anus. While inside, it may eat the cucumber's gonads. Although the cucumber normally defends itself by squirting out its guts, the pearlfish does not trigger this response, possibly because it isn't worth the trouble.
13Stephens Island Wren
Stephens Island Wren had no natural predators, so evolution rendered it flightless as it didn’t need to escape. Humans arrived on the island and one year after discovery and soon after its declaration as a new species, it went extinct. The lighthouse keeper's cat killed every single one of them. It is the only species to be eradicated by a single, lone entity.
14Jewel Beetles
Australian jewel beetles are threatened because they try to have sex with beer bottles that look/feel like the female Australian jewel beetle and they subsequently die of sun exposure.
15Deathwatch Beetles
Deathwatch beetles start their life as a pupa emerging from an egg and eat wood for 10 to 15 years, at the end of which they emerge as an adult beetle. At this point, they are blind and have less than a week to find a mate and have sex. So the male starts banging his head against the wood and hopes for a female to answer his calls. If he is lucky and finds a female, there are chances that she may reject him.
16Crab Hacker Barnacle
Crab hacker barnacle is a species of barnacle that is a parasite found in crabs. The female will attack a crab, movie inside it, push out a sac that contains its eggs. It then controls the mind of the crab into caring for its egg sack as its own, and when the time comes the crab shoots them out through pulses creating a large cloud of parasites.
17Parasitic Fungus
The ophiocordyceps unilateralis is a parasitical fungus that infects and exerts mind-control over certain species of ants. It will hijack an ant’s central nervous system and force the ant to climb a stalk of vegetation and anchor itself. The fungus then sprouts a stalk from the ant’s head, releasing spores that infect ants below. It can destroy entire ant colonies. In response, ants have evolved the ability to sense that a member of the colony is infected. Healthy ants will then carry the dying one far away from the colony in order to avoid the fungal spore exposure.
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18Giraffe
A giraffe starts its life by falling 2 meters (6ft) to the ground. Because they need to get blood to their brains through their long neck, they have a huge heart. Consequently, their blood pressure is extremely high, the highest of any animal on the planet at 280/180 and their heart rate rests at about 170bpm. The Humr people of Sudan consume a hallucinogenic drink; which is created from the liver and marrow of giraffes.
19Bedbugs
Bedbugs reproduce via a process known as “traumatic insemination” where the male pierces the abdomen of a female with his lance-like penis and injects his seed into the wound.
20Platypus
The duck-billed platypus has a gene mix of birds, reptiles, and mammals and genetically has 25 possible sexes. The Platypus is one of the few mammals that lay eggs. They lactate but have no nipples, hunt via electricity, and their venom has 80 different kinds of toxins.
