• Question: Whats the most perculier animal adapptaion

    Asked by eveyerrell to Daniel, Derek, Ian, Phil, Upul on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Derek Mann

      Derek Mann answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Hah this is great question. I watched TV prog the other night where they dissected big snakes and showed how they have really strechy skin so that they can swallow large animals, but even more weird was that they their lungs are long tubes unlike ours which are sort of sack shaped. Girraffes long necks are also an unusual adaptation, presumably gives them the advantage of being able to eat things at the top of trees which other animals have trouble reaching.

    • Photo: Daniel Mietchen

      Daniel Mietchen answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Depends on how you define “peculiar”. In general, any species considered as “extremophile” would probably have something to offer here, and human language is not a bad candidate either.

      To be more concrete, though, let’s consider the case of the (extremophile) fly Polypedilum vanderplanki which normally lives in shallow water pools in dry environments in East Africa. Its larvae can revive and undergo normal development after several minutes of immersion in liquid Helium (i.e. at a temperature of 3 K, or -270°C). It is thus adapted to temperatures way below the lowest temperature it ever experiences in its natural environment, which I find stunning.

      Insects are good for many other surprises, including walking off home in order to die alone instead of risking to infect their relatives.

      And parasites are really interesting from this perspective too – some species of fungus (not animals themselves) have adapted so well to the life of their animal host species that they can manage to direct the behaviour of their victims.

    • Photo: Ian Sillett

      Ian Sillett answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      I’m a big fan of the duck billed platypus. A mammal, with eggs? That’s some serious adaption weirdness. However, in general animals adapt to their environments and if the adaption doesn’t work, it doesn’t survive long enough to pass it on. So most adaptions have a reason.

      Having said that, I’ve never got the hang of ground nesting birds, or flightless ones.

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