

When Nature Is Freakier Than Sci-Fi - prat
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/09/when-nature-is-freakier-than-sci-fi/
The large tongue eating parasitic isopod is spooky. great picture.
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pmichaud
That isopod parasite is hardcore, I'll try to forget I read that bit.

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pavel_lishin
Why does that fish seem to have teeth?

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TrevorJ
The newt reminds me of wolverine and how his claws come out through his skin.
Pretty interesting stuff all around.

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biohacker42
This doesn't explain why nature is freakier, it's just a collection of freaky
pictures.

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ugh
Is that really so hard to answer? Everything that’s possible (to form through
evolution) can form. Evolution doesn’t care about human aesthetic judgments.
(This is obviously not strictly true, but close enough.)

It is very much conceivable that we won’t think of the same things evolution
can form.

And it is just a collection of freaky photos, but the title doesn’t imply
differently.

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biohacker42
Except that deleterious mutations will be selected against. So only
adaptations which make some sense will be passed on. That includes things like
anemia which provides protection from malaria.

And the title does very much imply some kind of answer or elaboration or
something that's not simply _look at these freaky pics_ An honest title would
have been upvoted a lot less here, but probably more over at reddit.

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ugh
“Except that deleterious mutations will be selected against. So only
adaptations which make some sense will be passed on.“

Yeah, you are right, my second sentence is a little misleading. Evolution is
certainly constrained. Not everything that is in some abstract sense possible
(And what does that even mean?) will or even can form. But evolution is most
certainly (most of the time) not constrained by human aesthetic judgments.
There are strange things out there in nature.

