Outrageous Animal Adaptations: From Big-Eared Bats to Frill-Necked Lizards

By Michael J. Rosen

A fish that walks on land, a frog that makes its own sunscreen, and an insect that can become invisible? Whether to avoid predators, to stalk prey, or to withstand extreme temperatures, Earth's creatures have evolved some outrageous features and tricks to ensure survival.

For example, did you know that the geoduck (nope, it's not a duck, it's a clam) can live as long as 160 years? And that the aye-aye, a nocturnal primate, uses echolocation and a long, spindly finger to find and dig up food? Or that in its deep-ocean habitat, the vampire squid uses bioluminescence to startle predators? These are among the many animals that show evolution and adaptation at work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lerner Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781541521995

Michael J. Rosen

Michael J. Rosen was among those involved in the very first days of Thurber House and he continued to serve as its literary director for twenty years. Michael is the author of some 150 other books—poetry, young-adult novels, anthologies, picture books, cookbooks—for readers of all ages. Most recently, he has published James Thurber's Collected Fables, as well as a hefty monograph, A Mile and a Half of Lines: The Art of James Thurber, that coincides with an exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art that he’s curated in honor of the Year of Thurber (2019).  He’s also an editor, ceramic artist, illustrator, and companion animal to a cattle dog named Chant.  www.michaeljrosen.com   

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The author would like to express his gratitude to Christoffer Strömstedt for help during the initial research and drafting of entries for an earlier version of this book.

Text copyright © 2018 by Michael J. Rosen

All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Cataloging-in-Publication Data for Outrageous Animal Adaptations:

From Big-Eared Bats to Frill-Necked Lizards is on file at the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-5124-2999-2 (lib. bdg.)

ISBN 978-1-5124-9885-1 (EB pdf)

Manufactured in the United States of America

1-41601-23506-9/8/2017

9781541521995 ePub

9781541522008 mobi

9781541522015 ePub

Table of Contents

Introduction: Evolutionary Elegance

Townsend’s Big-Eared Bat: Life (Almost) without Gravity

Aye-Aye: Drumming Up Food

Waxy Monkey Tree Frog: The Frog That Uses Sunscreen

Mudskipper: A Life on Land and Sea

Axolotl: Life as a Juvenile

Geoduck: A Life (Almost) without Aging

Giant Cuttlefish: Living Submarines

West Indian Manatee: The Ocean’s One Vegetarian Mammal

Galápagos Giant Tortoise: Life (Almost) without Predation

Giant Isopod: Deep-Sea Gigantism

Vampire Squid: Life in the Pitch-Dark Sea

Striped Anglerfish: A Fish with Tackle All Its Own

Devil’s Flower Mantis: Floral Assassin

Bobbit Worm: A Carnivore’s Speed

Camel Spider: The Largest (Invertebrate) Jaws in the Desert

Tasmanian Devil: A Rare Carnivorous Marsupial

Marabou Stork: A Scavenger’s Life

Australian Pelican: Life as a Heavyweight Flier

Malayan Tapir: A Most Noteworthy Nose

Naked Mole Rat: Mammals Living Like Ants

Two-Toed Sloth: Upside Down and Coated with Algae

Proboscis Monkey: A Primate That’s in the Swim

Mole Cricket: An Insect with Claws

Frill-Necked Lizard: Dragon on Two Legs

Source Notes

Glossary

Selected Bibliography

Further Information

Index

Introduction

Evolutionary Elegance

The proboscis monkey has evolved a large nose that amplifies its calls to warn other monkeys of danger. These monkeys also swim to avoid predators.

When I was young, my parents enrolled me in a book club about nature. Each month a volume about an ecosystem or grouping of related animal species appeared in our mailbox. Most pages in each of the paperback volumes featured an empty box that readers were invited to fill with a photo of the correct animal. The volumes provided the photos in a grouping of separate pages of full-color photographs. It was my job to place each of the photographs in the correct empty box in the book’s pages.

I acquired book after book—Life in the Everglades, Wildlife of Australia, Birds of Prey. I felt as if I were traveling the world, adding creature after creature to my list, as if I had encountered them on safaris and expeditions.

Exploring Nature

I spent much of my childhood with this zeal for the natural world. Yet it might have been my ninth-grade honors biology class that ignited my passion to be a naturalist. There, I peered through microscopes at my own eyelashes and then, adjusting the lens, at insect scales and skin cells. I handled tarantulas and hummingbirds encased in Plexiglas cubes and glass tubes. I listened to tapes of howler monkeys and whale songs. I puzzled my way through the taxonomic naming system that organizes the whole of the plant and animal kingdoms, memorizing each species, genus, family, order, class, and phylum. But most profoundly, these experiences created an unquenchable curiosity. They convinced me how tiny our human presence is when compared to the planet’s nearly immeasurable diversity.

Michael J. Rosen and his Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog live and explore in the Ohio foothills of the Appalachians.

Extreme Elegance

As an adult, I live on a 100-acre (40.5 ha) farm in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. I continually see how every creature, in its own competitive niche, has evolved ways to compete for territory and mates, and to eat and not be eaten.

This book showcases animals whose survival strategies are among the planet’s most extreme. Every creature in the book proves how elegantly, over thousands of generations, a species can transform—in size, shape, color, behavior, or sensory abilities—to meet the challenges necessary to survive and ensure the future of its kind. In fields such as biology, chemistry, and math, the word elegant hardly means chic or smartly dressed. Rather, elegance refers to simplicity, concision, and a concept’s ability to truly solve the problem it addresses. For example, when the nineteenth-century English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley read about Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection, he reportedly commented, How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!

Charles Darwin publicly introduced his theory of evolution in 1858. The theory states that all of life is related. Complex creatures evolve from simple organisms over time through genetic mutation. The mutations that help organisms survive are preserved and passed to the next generation.

The axolotl’s mane of frilly gills and the naked mole rat’s squinty, buck-toothed face and the proboscis monkey’s reddish honker may seem bizarre or outrageous. But each represents something simultaneously simple and yet decisive. Each feature or adaptation solves a particular predicament in a purposeful manner.

So even if you gasp or cringe—or even furrow your brow in disgust—as you read about the two dozen oddities featured here, I hope you’ll also marvel at their elegance—at the exquisite adaptations each remarkable