In an age when humans in industrialized countries have good access to birth control and are seldom eaten by predators, is natural selection still directing our evolution? That causes their genes to become more common in the population over time, and it’s the way species evolve to adapt to changes in their environment.

1) Chimpanzee Chimps are the class swot of the animal kingdom, that’s for sure. They use at least 66 distinct gestures to communicate with each other in the wild. Super Smart Animals starts tonight on BBC One at 8pm.

giant Pacific octopus

skinks

Some animals like the octopus have more than one heart. An octopus has one main, systemic heart that pumps blood to the whole of its body. But it also has two additional hearts, responsible for pumping blood over each of its gills.

There are also numerous animals with no hearts at all, including starfish, sea cucumbers and coral. Jellyfish can grow quite large, but they also don’t have hearts.

Fish

Bowhead whales can live for over 200 years. One particular bowhead was estimated to be 211. With a lifespan that can exceed 200 years, the bowhead whale is the longest-living marine mammal.

To date, there’s only one species that has been called ‘biologically immortal’: the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii. These small, transparent animals hang out in oceans around the world and can turn back time by reverting to an earlier stage of their life cycle.

These days, while statistical life expectancy in the U.S. is about 80 years, living well into one’s 80s or 90s is a perfectly realistic expectation for many. Even centenarians — people who are 100 years old or more — are on the rise. In 2015, some 72,000 Americans were centenarians.

Mosquitoes

Here, the 10 most dangerous animals in the world.

• Golden poison dart frog.
• Box jellyfish.
• Pufferfish.
• Black mamba.
• Saltwater crocodile.
• Tsetse fly.
• Mosquito.
• Humans. Surprised?

Hippos

The cutest animals in the world that you never knew existed

• Margay, Central and South America.
• Red panda, South and central Asia.
• Capybara, South America.
• Patagonian mara, South America.
• Numbat, Australia.
• Mangalitsa, Hungary.
• Elephant shrew, Africa.
• Tarsier, Philippines.

Fatal dog attacks in the United States cause the deaths of about 30 to 50 people in the US each year, and the number of deaths from dog attacks appears to be increasing.

The authors of the study confirmed there is no official data on how many humans die from hippo attacks annually. “The human mortality rate from hippopotamus attacks is unknown but it is estimated to range from 500 to 3000 per year,” the study says.

Hippos coexist with a variety of large predators. Nile crocodiles, lions and spotted hyenas are known to prey on young hippos. However, due to their aggression and size, adult hippos are not usually preyed upon by other animals.

The 2020 worldwide total of 57 confirmed unprovoked cases was lower than the most recent five-year (2015-2019) average of 80 incidents annually. There were 13 shark related fatalities this year, 10 of which were confirmed to be unprovoked.

Between 2015-16 and 2019-2020 the HSE investigated 142 incidents. Only 22 of them resulted in a death and the majority related to people who worked with cattle. Members of the public accounted for only four of those deaths, the HSE confirmed.

1610 deaths were reported, or about 200 per year. That’s a reasonably big number, but when you consider size of the population in the US, it’s low. That rate corresponds to 4.8 deaths per 10 million people per year.

You’ve seen “Jaws.” You know sharks can be deadly. But in reality, they don’t kill very many people each year. There are approximately five deaths caused by sharks annually, while horses kill about 20 people a year and cows kill about 22.