When it comes to animals, there is a hierarchy of suffering, with some having it much harder than others. In many cases, evolution seemed to pick an animal at random and see how difficult its life could get. Some are involved in death-defying feats shortly after being born. Others have to choose between mating and staying alive. Still others are driven almost mad with love. It's a crazy world out there, and these poor creatures are just trying to make it another day against all the odds...
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Humans like to complain a lot, but overall things worked out pretty sweet for us. Evolution gifted mankind with huge brains and opposable thumbs, which we used to make things like wheels and refrigerators and tampons. Meanwhile, lesser creatures are out there just trying to survive while we mock them in our centrally heated houses surrounded by more food than we could ever eat.
Life on Earth is nothing if not resilient, with many living things found thriving in an astonishing variety of living conditions, some of which seem like they should be too hostile to survive in. The most hardy lifeforms on Earth are known as extremophiles, named specifically because they thrive in extreme environments which would quickly kill most other things, including humans. A paper in the journal Life explains that these extremophiles are perfectly comfortable living in Earth's most severe environments, including scorching heat, freezing cold, crushing pressure, and even acids strong enough to dissolve metal. With their ability to live in such unusual places, these lifeforms are of huge interest both to biologists, and to astrobiologists who look for life elsewhere in the Universe.
We can probably all agree that animals are wonderful and adorable. Unfortunately, much like us, they're also a part of the circle of life, which means that terrible things are going to happen to some of them. They get sick, and they get injured, and since an animal doesn't really have a way to bounce back from serious injury, losing the use of an important body part will make their lives very hard and, in all likelihood, very brief.
Sharks are some of the most fearsome predators on Earth, never mind those confined strictly to the oceans. Rows of razor-sharp teeth and the ability to sniff out a drop of blood a quarter of a mile away make them the stuff of nightmares for a large portion of the population. However, for the most part, those fears are unfounded. According to the National Ocean Service, the truth of the matter is that most sharks don't pose a direct danger to humans. There are hundreds of species of sharks cruising around the world, and of those, only about a dozen have been documented to have attacked people.
We explore animals and animal science from all over the world and over millions of years.
