Facts About Nature

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I think I just discovered the most horrifying bug ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adactylidium

"Adactylidium is a genus of mites known for its unusual life cycle. The pregnant female mite feeds upon a single egg of a thrips, growing five to eight female offspring and one male in her body. The single male mite mates with all the daughters when they are still in the mother. The females, now impregnated, eat their way out of their mother's body so that they can emerge to find new thrips eggs. The male emerges as well, but does not look for food or new mates, and dies after a few hours. The females die at the age of 4 days, when their own offspring eat them alive from the inside."

There is no God.

Baby koalas eat some faeces from an adult koala, usually it's mother.
This transfers microbes into their gastrointestinal tract which allows them to digest gum leaves.
Failure to acquire these microbes results in almost certain death.

India was an island from the late Cretaceous to the mid-Paleogene. At the time, India was home to the mighty Rajasaurus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajasaurus

The closest living relatives of elephants are sirenians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethytheria

Tunicates are more closely related to vertebrates than they are to sponges.

The Monito del monte is more closely related to Australian marsupials than it its to opossums.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monito_del_monte

Sabre teeth have evolved several different times in separate animal lineages.

The first animals to have sabre teeth were non-mammalian synapsids which lived in Pangaea during the Permian. Much later, sabre teeth evolved in many separate mammal lineages.

The first mammalian sabre-toothed predators were the nimravids, which evolved in North America during the Eocene epoch. Later, the thylacosmilids evolved in South America. After that, the barbourofelids evolved in Africa. After that, the sabre-toothed big cats finally evolved.

Gliding has evolved many different times in many separate reptile lineages.

The earliest known gliding reptiles were the weigeltisaurids, which lived in Pangaea during the Permian. later, the Triassic gave rise to Sharovipteryx and the kuehneosaurids. The Triassic also gave rise to pterosaurs. The earliest pterosaurs were likely gliding reptiles, but they soon gained the ability to actually fly.

During the Jurassic, several dinosaurs gained the ability to glide, setting the stage for flying birds.

Modern gliding snakes and gliding lizards evolved separately, much more recently.

Rabbits aren't rodents. They are lagomorphs.

Shrews aren't rodents either. They are eulipotyphla.

Land snails aren't all closely related to one another.

The earliest gastropods were sea snails. Several different lineages of sea snail have evolved into land snails independently of one another.

Slugs aren't all closely related either. Several different snail lineages have independently lost their external shells.

Xenophyophores aren't multicellular. They are very large unicellular eukaryotes bearing several nuclei.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophyophore

Most flightless insects are descendants of flying ancestors.

This isn't universally true. Some very primitive insects (such as jumping bristletails, silverfish and firebrats) have no flying ancestors. That being said, the vast majority of insects are in the pterygota subclass. All insects in this subclass are either capable of flight, or evolved from flying ancestors.

For example, ants are basically flightless wasps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aculeata

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnolia

Perching birds don't always eat "bird seed". Most perching birds hunt insects as well. This is especially true of shrikes, which have been known to impale their prey on thorns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrike

That's not all. There are some parrots that eat meat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kea

Another Thing: Falcons are more closely related to songbirds than they are to eagles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eufalconimorphae

You will never look at cute little birdies the same way ever again.

Specialized insectivore mammals have evolved on many separate occasions from completely different ancestors.

Fruitafossor - very early mammal with no close living relatives
Eurotamandua - unknown
Aardvark - related to tenrecs
Numbat - related to quolls
Echidna - related to platypuses
Pangolin - related to carnivoran mammals
Anteater - related to sloths