Animals are innately pretty cool, free and peaceful, majestic and powerful. They’re fun to learn about while also remaining mysterious. Some animals come with pretty slick party tricks that could improve and enrich the lives of humans if we were as gifted.
1. A kangaroo’s tail is essential for balance.
All aboard the klutz train! Some days I just can’t keep it together, and balance is a valuable commodity. It would be so helpful to have an extra limb to help keep me upright with all the tripping I do.
2. Ants take minute-long power naps, around 250 each day.
Short and sweet, these power naps help the ants to continue working day in, day out. Finals week would be no problem if students could obtain this power.
On the other hand...
3. Horses can sleep standing up.
You don’t really think about all the times during the day that you spend standing around — in line at a grocery store, on the curb waiting for your ride and in the kitchen waiting for your ramen water to boil are just a few. If we had the power to take a quick standing-nap during these lulls in our day, it would probably be just the boost we need.
4. A chameleon’s eyes can move in two different directions.
This power makes for some great multitasking. If our eyes could focus on two different tasks at once, we could get so much more done during the day. And keeping an eye on our kids (literally one on each) would be a breeze.
5. Lyrebirds can mimic the sounds of their environment, from running water to chainsaws.
This power is just fascinating, as well as a possible form of auditory camouflage. Being stalked by your creepy classmate? Just step into a construction zone and disguise yourself as a jackhammer.
6. Elephants can lift more than 600 pounds with their trunk.
Bro, do you even lift?! If humans started spontaneously sprouting trunks, personal trainers around the world would be put to shame. With this strength, once challenging tasks like lifting a car to change a tire would be as easy as taking out the trash.
7. The axolotl can replace its vital organs, even its brains.
Who needs to wait for an eligible organ donor after a bad accident when you can produce your own replacement organs? If humans had evolved with this creature’s power, recovery from disease would be expected, giving millions of families more time with their loved ones.
8. The mantis shrimp has 16 color receptive cones in its eyes.
Humans only have three which greatly limits our visible color spectrum. This creature of the sea can see the full spectrum, plus ultraviolet light. Imagine watching a sunset as a mantis shrimp. Talk about romantic!
9. Salmon can sense Earth’s magnetic fields using a sort of internal GPS system.
If we’re being honest here, it’s really not safe to use a GPS while driving. But we use it anyway because many humans don’t have the greatest sense of direction. So how useful would it be to feel the pull of the Earth’s magnetic fields and navigate in a screenless (and crashless) fashion?
10. Some species of female snakes can fertilize their own eggs and produce offspring without mating.
These ladies don’t need no man in their life to be happy. At least as a snake, it would be good to know that even if my prince charming doesn’t come riding — umm, slithering — to my rescue, I can still have a family.
11. A whale's voice can reach up to 188 decibels and can travel a thousand miles in the right conditions.
With this power, there would be no excuse for your kids not coming down to dinner. They’d hear you, all right. Not only that, but estranged lovers could call to each other, wailing and sending love songs from afar.
These are just a few of nature’s wonders packed into the bodies of nature’s most interesting creatures. I don’t foresee these powers appearing in humans any time soon, since evolution progresses on a much broader timescale. But it’s cool to imagine a stand-sleeping, environment-mimicking, organ-reproducing, internal-mapping society, with these special powers and others that we have yet to discover.
