I ❤ Alligator Snapping Turtles

In Florida it has been declared illegal to posses a snapping turtle without a permit. Just this week a man was found with one and was fined and sent to jail after being found with one inside his washing machine. Along with the turtle they also found snakes lizards and other reptiles in the household. Wright, the owner of the house was put into jail after trying to deny the police access to his house. It was not illegal for him to have the other animals, but he did not have a permit for the snapping turtle, and also denied the police entrance to search the premises.

http://www.ksat.com/news/Illegal-snapping-turtle-found-hidden-in-man-s-washer-dirty-laundry/-/478452/19485334/-/33laop/-/index.html

I ❤ Cliff Swallows

Cliff Swallows are known to build small mud huts on cliffs for their young to mature in. Because of the increasing urbanization of our planet the Swallows have made a habit of building their huts underneath bridges. Scientists have been drooling over the "Jaw dropping" drop in Swallow deaths around roadways in the last 30 years. After delving deeper into this conundrum, they have also found the wing span on cliff Swallows to have also dropped drastically..... about the size of a Tic Tac. They have also found that the dead Swallows have ad slightly longer wings. So the conclusion is that the Cliff Swallows have adapted to the copious amounts of traffic by shortening their wings through natural selection so that dodging cars is much easier. So here it is, a shining example of Darwin's theory happening right in front of our faces, and right in our country....The incredibly wonderful United States of America.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/349028/description/Shorter-winged_swallows_evolve_around_highways

I ❤ Tadpoles

Scientists have been attempting to find an answer to the question of whether eyes can be planted on the body, and then utilized. They have finally been able to solve it. 134 tadpoles of the African Clawed Frog species have been experimented on. The scientists grafted eyes onto the tails of the tadpoles, and then removed the eyes. After doing so the tadpoles were put into a pool with blue light areas that were safe, and red areas that would zap the tadpoles with a small amount of electricity. The areas would change so the tadpoles couldn't memorize the locations. They then used the eyes on their tales to avoid the red areas, proving that they were using them. Life-changing.

http://www.livescience.com/27518-tadpoles-sprout-eyeballs-on-tails.html