Some Really Ugly Mothers

I received an interesting email today that featured all these weird-looking animals. This got me thinking about natural selection, something you and I probably haven't thought about since high school biology.


You see, natural selection is pretty much the biggest, baddest mother out there living longer and passing on his genes to the next generation. Multiply this by several generations and this line becomes a strong one while others just fall by the wayside. Now how do you suppose these buggers lived so long?


1. The Proboscis Monkey (Nasalis larvatus), also known as long-nosed monkey, is a reddish-brown arboreal Old World monkey. The most distinctive trait of this monkey is the male's large protruding nose. The purpose of the large nose is unclear, but it has been suggested that it is a result of sexual selection. The female Proboscis Monkey prefers big-nosed males, thus propagating the trait.

2. The blobfish (Psychrolutes marcidus) is a fish that inhabits the deep waters off the coasts of Australia and Tasmania . Due to the inaccessibility of its habitat, it is rarely seen by humans.

3. The Aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) is a strepsirrhine native to Madagascar that combines rodent-like teeth with a long, thin middle finger to fill the same ecological niche as a woodpecker.