Awkward Adaptations

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  • Valid Life Choices

    Bloodshot:
    why the horned lizard squirts blood from
    its eyes in self-defense

    If you’ve ever been so angry you saw red, stand back, because the phrase “blood in your eye” gets taken to a whole new level by the horned lizard.  They defend themselves from certain predators by shooting jets of blood from their eyes.

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  • Awkward All-stars

    Red-Faced and Radiant:
    this primate judges your pallor
    and finds you unworthy

    Amazonian Cacajao by Aaron Martin
    Red Uakari by Kevin O'Connell
    so color. much charisma.
    photo by Kevin O’Connell (CC BY 2.0)

    If the uakari (wah-KAHR-ee) of the Amazon river basin were human, you’d hesitate to swipe right.  Both sexes come with a seriously receding hairline and a body type best described as “frumpy muppet.”  To top it off, their faces are…. Red.  Really, really red.

    They look like a Minnesota frat boy on his third day in Cancun. And they don’t care what you think of them.

    Among the four sub-species of bald uakari, that sun-broiled complexion isn’t a sign someone forgot their sunscreen – it’s an honest signal to others that you are a sexy monkey.

    That’s because the color of an individual’s face is actually a direct window into their health.

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  • Valid Life Choices

    Stiff Competition:
    why one small marsupial is the only mammal to mate itself to death

    If you think the competition is stiff in your dating pool, try being an antechinus (anti-KINE-us), a genus of tiny marsupial that literally mates itself to death.

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