"The ultimate freak show is an understatement: Armed worms, sex-crazed fish, poison-hungry butterflies, polka-dotted flying good luck charms, and the most despicable creature born with a grin whose blood fights gravity. No one knows all the secrets they hold, but what’s clear is that the strangest amongst us are showing us a better way to live.

"The catch? They are teaching us their survival skills as they disappear.

"It’s natural to resist the idea that we can learn from what makes most do a double-take for the wrong reasons. But no one can deny that these oddballs have passed the most brutal of selection tests by tinkering with their inherited traits. As others wiped out, they whipped up fascinating tricks to get by.

"Maybe most perplexing is not how eccentric they are (and they are full-blown gloriously bizarre), but that we would be ambivalent about losing them. This is irreplaceable data. So putting aside these creatures are a pure source of wonder, the linchpin to a thriving, humming planet, and have an inherent right to be here: if we are obsessed with, and arguably dependent on, cutting-edge technology–why are we wiping out the true masters of innovation?" - Katey Losey

Article: Disappearing Freaks of Nature—and the Secrets Going With Them