I’ve been reading the Carl Zimmer book Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea, and I came across an amusing passage. He’s talking here about the defenses that organisms to fight parasites:
Any adaptations that can keep a host disease-free will be favored by natural selection. Leaf-rolling caterpillars, for instance, fire their droppings out of an anal cannon, so that they don’t end up creating a fragrant pile of frass that attracts parasitic wasps.
Anal cannon! Is it childish that I find that funny?
Michael Dietsch 