Weirdest evolutionary development?
 

There's a lot of weirdness out there, but square poop?

What's your pick on the strangest result of the evolutionary process? Mine is cube-shaped poop.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-46258616

How did you evolve cube-shaped poo?

At the end of the article it says that the cubed shape helps attract other wombats so more offspring the cube-ier their poop.

Probably have to block out a lot of time for that to occur. As to wombat sex, no cube equals no dice. It's a brick wall.

Nothing that weird. However, I did lean a bit about plant evolution. Dandelions developed flat low growing leaves via lawnmowers. More a survival of the fittest thing. Lawn mowers would kill off the high leaf growth ones before seed developed. The low growth ones survived, the mowers actually spreading their seeds.

Dandelions not native to Oregon. Brought here by pioneers who loved their dandelion tea...

Rookie.
I'm like the play dough fun factory; starts, hearts, even letters.

In the past I have chit a brick...

Weirdest thing in evolution...

The evolution I learned in school is now called vertical gene transfer: getting genes from parents.

There's a new sort of evolution called Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT). In the past 75 years this idea went from becoming a hypothesis to an accepted theory.

Turns out there's cases where genes can arrive in other ways than just from parents.

One new clear way is via that gene editing stuff, but now scientists are comparing genomes and finding gene sharing cases that occured naturally too. Viruses can transfer genetic material and some species (mostly small things and plants) are more receptive of new genes via pollen 'n stuff. Totally makes sense that a successful species would be able to steal another successful species' IP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer

^ That is interesting.

Earthworms are not native to some areas, from what I understand.

They have changed soil and thus flora and thus the entire pyramid of life.
The Michigan state bird, the Robin, is a predator of such.
After every rain they go to town.

Read something a few weeks ago that after a bone marrow transplant the dude's sperm even changed to match the donor's DNA.

I read a bit about this, blood and sperm and marrow will all grow with the new DNA, bones and tissue will remain with the old. A chimera! Very cool.

Platypus

Venomous!

That still doesn't explain why your kids look like the mailman.

I went down that rabbit hole reading about horizontal gene transfer a few years ago. The most interesting thing to me is that many of the genes related to human reproduction were transferred from viruses and then inherited.

There was a segment on NPR about this. Very interesting stuff.

I wonder what affect that may have on DNA testing for criminal purposes?

The drive of life to live and reproduce is astonishing. There are many Extremophiles like the water bear that can survive almost anywhere. Research has found that tardigrades can withstand environments as cold as minus 328 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 200 Celsius) or highs of more than 300 degrees F (148.9 C) and even the vacuum of space! That is astonishing evolution.

https://www.livescience.com/57985-tardigrade-facts.html

Virtually anywhere on the planet that has water at all, has life. At the bottom of mines over a mile deep, in solid rock, the miners find life. In the steaming geyser of Yellowstone at temps that would boil an egg in minutes are living things very happy to be there.

Chimeric things have been messed up for folks in the past.

One lady was having custody issues with her ex, DNA test showed kids weren't hers. She was preggers at the time, ended up birthing in front of a court witness who did a DNA test on the kid right then and there, came back as "not hers". She was chimera, and her ovaries were from the "other" part.

And yes, it is rather scary considering most folks consider DNA evidence to be absolute proof.

https://www.cracked.com/article_20055_6-unassuming-animals-that-are-secretly-immortal.html

So it's a race between The Umbrella Company(resident evil) and Cyberdyne Systems(terminator).
Who will do humanity in first?

As an evolutionary entomologist, I can't pass up the opportunity to mention 'traumatic insemination'. Some bedbug males inseminate their mate by simply piercing the female's exoskeleton. This has led in some species to females having 'paragenitalia', a secondary opening in a new place to prevent guide the males and limit the damage.

Mike

Great stuff!

Also, another mostly lurking BBP (Big Brain Pelican)! Post more...please, please!!

Vasectomy can cause this...can also cause your kids to change color.

Cant possibly get weirder than this. Mammal with a duck beak, webbed feet, venomous spikes in its thighs, a beaver tail, and that lays eggs! When the first samples were taken back to England the discoverer was accused of having sewn together various annimals to make one up.

Hammer Head Sharks are pretty weird...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1579118478.jpg

Interesting

Kangaroo genitalia, queen bee mating, Quetzal plumage, and other evolutionary replication techniques.

Primates are certainly a contender. Besides the scientific reasons, there is this:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/1050021-jet-pack-fun.html#post10720537

I’m sure there’s some court out there that would jump at the chance to penalize the bone marrow donor with child support payments based on this too.

Think it can’t happen? It’s already happened to “anonymous” sperm donors. Never underestimate the misandrist bias in the family law system...

Be careful out there gentlemen!

Yea the platypus is pretty odd. I might a hard time believing such a mythical sort of creature actually existed if I hadn’t actually seen one in person!

Paddlefish

https://www.mdwfp.com/media/254201/paddlefish.jpg

Narwahl

https://d2chemrnatmkp3.cloudfront.ne...ty=90&jpg=true

Somewhat OT, but you've got to be careful with this. My mother worked with a lady. The couple had several kids and not a lot of money, so the husband got a vasectomy. I've not had one, but apparently, part of the process is that a short time after the procedure, the guy goes to the Dr office and provides a sample that the Drs then use to confirm that the procedure was successful. Apparently this guy was too macho or something to do the check. Then within a few months, his wife got pregnant. He then proceeded to treat her like sheisse and call her every name in the book because "I've had a vasectomy." Eventually, the guy was checked and it was determined that his vasectomy hadn't taken.

Then, on the other end of the scale, you can have parents that appear to be one color with children that appear to be another color.

I'm pretty sure that the Narwahl's spike is actually a tooth.

One of my friends had it done. And then went back to have his swimmers checked, and yep, still swimming. So he had it again. Went back for the check, and still swimming!

He explained to the doctor, if this one does not take the doc will never need to have one because he will castrate the doc (and then they all laughed)

The third one indeed was a success.