• Question: What do you think is the most strangest thing on this planet and that there is no need for it?

    Asked by Sweeney:) to Áine, Ciarán, Eoin, Lydia on 20 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Lydia Bach

      Lydia Bach answered on 20 Nov 2014:

      Hi Sweeney!

      Do you mean the strangest animal? There are lots of those!

      But the cool thing is that even the strangest animals all look how they do for a reason. Now, or some point in the past there was a reason for the animal to grow its weird and wonderful appearance.

      For example, my favourite is the story of the aye aye. The aye aye is a strange lemur that lives in forests in Madagascar. It looks like a rodent, and has one extra long finger. It uses this finger to tap very quickly on tree trunks which detects tasty grubs and then uses the finger to pull the food out. This long finger gives it an advantage because the longer the finger, the deeper it can probe for food. So over many many years the finger grew longer!

      Here it is in action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1CqxkpfSHc

      In Madagascar there are no woodpeckers, and so the aye aye with its long finger and tree top lifestyle has taken on the same role as a woodpecker. So there is always a need for our strangest creatures 🙂

      What do you think is the strangest animal?

    • Photo: Ciarán O'Brien

      Ciarán O'Brien answered on 21 Nov 2014:

      I think humans are the strangest thing on the planet! No other living thing does the crazy things we do. Sure, a few apes and birds can use basic tools, and a few species like to socialise and have their own form of language, but seriously how crazy is strapping yourself into a giant rocket full of incredibly explosive fuel and landing on the moon?!

      I’m not sure if I’d get rid of humanity though. I mean the planet really doesn’t need us and would do just fine without us, but I’m quite fond of us and I’d like not to go extinct 🙂

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