18 Animals That Flunked Evolution
Somewhere in the ether, Charles Darwin is shaking his head.
Published 9 months ago in Facepalm
Contrary to popular misconceptions — and the entire premise of the Darwin Awards — major evolutionary flaws don't necessarily mean dying out in a blaze of glorious embarrassment. Sometimes, it means you're simply stuck living with yourself — just ask the koalas, sloths, and other creatures that spend their entire lives operating like that.
From Pandas' terrible maternal instincts to the ferret fate that would turn high schools into The Hunger Games if it happened to humans, here are 18 animals that spectacularly failed at evolution.
1
“Hands down has to be red algae's s—m cells being unflagellated. They reproduce externally in the water, and because their s—m cells cannot move they have to hope that ocean waves will push the s—m cells to the egg cells drifting in the water. Their haploid generation is so awful at reproducing that they need a third generation to xerox copy the zygotes just to make sure red algae don't go extinct. They are the only clade to alternate between three generations instead of two.”2
“Horses. Everything about horses. When they pee, they can’t push it all out so they get UTIs almost all of the time. Also, their stomachs can get flipped over on themselves and cut off circulation, rot away and kill the horse. Just from laying down and rolling around. Stupid animals and I hate them. Also horses are pretty cool.”7
“Pandas. Everything about pandas. They can barely digest bamboo but it's also their only food source so they just eat a LOT of it to compensate. Also they can only raise one child at a time and if they have twins, they'll just leave the weaker one to die. It's pretty impressive they're capable of existing really.”12
"Any way you look at it, these little guys have failed at evolution. They pretty much only eat Eucalyptus. This is just bad for survival in general, as if Eucalyptus is destroyed within their habitats, they will likely starve. It also means that if too many Koalas occupy to same area, there will not be enough food to go around (these are both true for all species, but Koalas make themselves even more vulnerable by relying on one food source). Additionally, since gum trees like Eucalyptus are fibrous and low in nutrition, Koalas have to rest up to 22 hours a day, as Eucalyptus take a lot of energy to digest. Not only have they specialized into eating one single type of food, that food inhibits their general day to day functions as a result."16
“If you turn a shark belly up it goes into a completely immobilized trance. Incidentally, orcas figured this out, and they use this on great white sharks. Knowing that the shark is always looking up at the surface to spot its prey, the orca will sneak up on it from below and flip it over, then eat the shark's liver and leave the rest of the body behind. Scientists aren't sure why they do it. They could be doing it to remove their competition from the hunting area, or they could do it because they really like shark liver -- Or what I find to be the most interesting possibility, it could be that they do it simply for sport.”