Frugal living is a very rewarding way to live. Not only do you save money, you get to learn a lot of skills that many would consider long-dead. When living a frual lifestyle you are seldom bored because there is always something you can be doing to save money. Here is a list of the top tips for getting started in frugal living. You will notice that this is not a “top 10” list – but rather just a “top list” – I would like everyone to contribute their own items and a small description in the comments and I will place them in the main list. Let’s see if we can make this the best online list of tips for Frugal Living.

10. Budget

This is essential for all lifestyles – not just frugal living. Make a budget (be completely honest with yourself) and put a special section aside to keep track of how much money you spend. Each week, try to spend a little less than the week before. This can be a lot of fun as you start competing with yourself. You will be amazed how much lower you can go week by week.

9. Cancel Unneeded Services

Cancel cable TV and any magazine subscriptions you have. If you are like me, the chances are that you don’t read the majority of your subscriptions. I have a subscription to the New Yorker and on the rare occasion that I do open the latest copy, I normally just look at the cartoons! Most of the magazines that are available have websites with many of their print articles online. Use those instead.

8. Sell Sell Sell

Spend a weekend to go through every room in your house, picking out all of the things that you don’t use or need. Once you have finished rounding up all your unneeded goods, sell them on ebay. Not only will you simplify your life by de-cluttering, you will make some money which you can put in the bank for an occasional treat.

7. Talk to other frugal people

There are thousands of brilliant resources on the internet for people who are interested in Frugal living. In addition to websites I strongly recommend the newsgroup misc.consumers.frugal-living which has thousands of subscribers and a non-stop flow of useful tips and advice for frugal living.

6. Save on Bills

Run your washing machine on cold, and make sure you turn out any lights that are not in use. Another great way to save money here is to turn down the thermostat on your hot water boiler. Most electric and gas companies have brochures that tell you how to save money – take advantage of these. You can save a lot of money by wrapping up warm on the sofa with a good book and leaving the heating turned off.

5. Freebies

There are lots of freebies available that can save you a great deal of money. A google search for free goods can bring up a lot of useful items that you would normally have to pay for. You can also try writing to some of your favorite companies and ask for samples. If you have to stay in a hotel for any reason, be sure to pack up any left over soaps or shower items – you are paying for them as part of your hotel room bill, so you might as well get some use out of them.

4. Cleaners

This may sound horrifying complicated, but it is very easy to make all of your own household cleaners. Not only is it easy, it is fun. One bar of soap can make enough washing detergent to last months! Here are some excellent recipes for homemade washing detergent. For other cleaning needs you can often use vinegar in place of the expensive items you are used to buying. Don’t bother buying dryer sheets – they are totally unnecessary and cost a lot of money.

3. Use Coupons

Check your local stores regularly for coupons or special deals. You should be careful though – don’t buy something that is not essential just because it is on discount. Keep the coupons handy in case you need one at a later date.

2. Clothing

Don’t buy new clothes unless you absolutely must. It also goes without saying that you should not buy big label brand clothing as it is much more expensive than regular clothes. This is also a good opportunity to develop some good old fashioned skills like sewing – if you have clothes that are in need of repair, don’t throw them away – repair them. It is not difficult to learn how to use a needle and thread.

1. Eat Well

I say eat well because if you follow this tip, you will eat better than you have before. First off you need to stop buying any pre-packaged meals. Start making your own meals – all three of them. As you get better at being frugal, you can set aside time on the weekend to bake bread and other goods – it is much cheaper to make your own bread than it is to buy bread from the shop. In addition, it tastes much better. You can also dispense with things like milk and use milk powder. Remember to buy your flour and milk powder in bulk. At some point in the future I will write a list of top 10 frugal recipes.

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The human body is made up of about 37 trillion cells. After all, that is what the textbooks say, right?

Wrong!

In fact, our bodies contain 30–50 trillion extra cells which belong to the bacteria living in your intestines. However, these bacteria are rather small, weighing a measly 1.4 kilograms (3 lb) altogether, a minor part of human body weight. Small as they are, we should be thankful to have them as they improve our health in numerous and surprising ways.

In fact, the bacteria in our guts, collectively known as microbiota (or microbiome to include the bacterial genes), are so important for our well-being that the National Institutes of Health launched the Human Microbiome Project back in 2008.

The days when bacteria were considered only as little bugs causing disease are behind us. Let’s explore some of the most fascinating facts about the microbiota and see how important your intestinal bacteria are for your health. Also, we will see how to encourage the good bacteria in your system and, if you are a healthy person, whether your stool might be useful for somebody else!

10 A Healthy Microbiome In A Healthy Gut

The first obvious place to look at the effects of gut bacteria on our health is in the gut itself. Recent research has shown that good bacteria interact with the epithelial cells lining the gut and the cells of the immune system that fight the bad bacteria such as Salmonella.

Salmonella evokes a strong inflammatory reaction, which is in itself a good thing as this helps to attack and destroy the microbe. Unfortunately, inflammation can also damage healthy gut tissue.

The good bacteria put the brakes on inflammation by communicating with cells of the immune system. These cells then start to secrete anti-inflammatory molecules to reduce inflammation.

The good bacteria ensure an optimal balance between the inflammatory reactions that attack bad bacteria while leaving healthy gut tissue and food alone. As a result, the intestines are in optimal shape to nourish our body.^[1]

9 Allergies

Food allergies have increased by about 50 percent in children since 1997. Various theories have attempted to explain why, and the one gaining the most traction right now concerns changed eating habits and, hence, altered microbiome composition.

Did you know that today’s American children have had on average three antibiotic treatments, killing off many of their gut bacteria, before they are three years old? Laboratory studies in mice have shown that antibiotics given early in life increase the risk for food allergies dramatically.

When these mice are fed Clostridia, which are naturally occurring bacteria in mice, the food allergies disappear. These bacteria protect the lining of the intestines and thereby prevent the entry of reaction-causing food proteins into the bloodstream.

Other healthy bacteria such as Bacteroides do not have a protective effect. It seems that each bacteria species plays a unique role in immune responses, such as those involved in allergies.^[2]

8 Cancer Immunotherapy

Cancer immunotherapies activate the immune system to attack a tumor. The outcome of the therapy varies from person to person. The bugs living in your gut are a determining factor in how successful the therapy will be. As a rule of thumb, the more variety in your microbiome, the better you will respond to immunotherapy.

The species of bacteria in the gut is also important. The presence of bacteria known as Clostridiales and Akkermansia will likely lead to a favorable outcome with immunotherapy, whereas the presence of Bacteroidales will more often than not reduce therapy success. People taking antibiotics, which kill a substantial part of the microbiota, respond less well to cancer immunotherapy.

Don’t think that the influence of the microbiome on the outcome of cancer therapy is too far-fetched. For liver cancer, the entire biological mechanism connecting the microbiome with the tumor has been described in astonishing detail—complete with cell types and molecules involved. Perhaps clinicians should start looking at how antibiotics are used in cancer patients receiving immunotherapy?^[3]

7 And They Lived Happily Ever After

Fruit flies have an average life span of about 40 days (if not eaten sooner by a hungry bird, of course). When scientists fed the flies with a combination of probiotics and an herbal supplement called Triphala, they were able to prolong the life of the flies by as many as 26 days!

The flies were protected against diseases of aging, such as increased insulin resistance and inflammation. These effects were caused by the completely altered composition of the microbiota by the probiotics (that are live bacteria themselves).

For flies, the secret to a long life therefore lies in the microbiota and the gut. But this may also hold true for humans to some extent because flies and humans share as much as 70 percent of their biochemical pathways.^[4]

6 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes patients know that consuming fiber-rich food can improve their condition. A fiber-rich diet promotes the growth of particular strains of bacteria, which produce short-chain fatty acids. These products of carbohydrates nourish the epithelial cells of our gut, reduce inflammation, and help to control appetite.

After 12 weeks of a high-fiber diet, sugar levels in type 2 diabetes patients are much better controlled, weight loss is increased, and lipid levels are improved. The diet can rebalance the gut microbiome, and healthy dieting may thus become an important part of diabetes treatment.^[5]

5 Anxiety And Depression

Imagine a life without bacteria in your guts. How would you feel? Probably anxious and depressed with little desire to see friends and family. At least, this is what studies in germ-free mice have shown.

You really need those bugs in your system because they are important for how you feel. Their presence influences the molecular biology in your brain, especially in an almond-shaped structure known as the amygdala and in a particular region of the cortex.

These brain structures control emotion and mood. Thus, there is a direct link between the bacteria in your intestines and the molecular biology of the brain. Further research is needed to show whether it is possible to alter the microbiome in humans to treat mood disorders—an interesting approach that might put psychiatrists out of business.^[6]

4 Nature Versus Nurture

The composition of the microbiome differs from person to person. For a long time, it has been thought that this variability finds its origin in differences in our genes (nature). However, recent research has revealed that genetic variation contributes only 2 percent to microbiome makeup. Instead, diet and lifestyle are by far the most important determinants of microbiome composition (nurture).

Of course, this is excellent news. It means that we can change the population of bugs living in our guts by changing our diets or by adopting healthy lifestyles. Try changing your genome. You can’t—it is fixed from birth. But we can change our microbiome, which could significantly improve our health.^[7]

3 ‘There’s No Friends Like The Old Friends’—James Joyce

Living in the countryside might be peaceful and quiet. However, the real reason why people living in rural areas enjoy better health than those living in cities is that they can stand stress much better. This is because their immune systems do not suffer from the negative consequences of stress. This is especially true for people growing up in close contact with farm animals.

The animals are covered with and surrounded by a whole set of environmental bacteria that no doubt colonize humans as well. In fact, we have been living in perfect harmony with these bacteria for thousands of years. They are old friends that give us a hand in staying healthy.^[8]

2 Vaccination With Bacteria

Everybody is familiar with the principle of vaccination. A crippled virus is injected into your body, and the immune system prepares itself for the attack of the real virus some time later. Did you know that it is possible to do something similar with bacteria?

For example, mice have been immunized with the soil bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae, which made them more resistant to stress. They were also protected against stress-induced colitis, a typical symptom of inflammatory bowel disease.

As compared to classic vaccination, a particular advantage of immunization with bacteria is that the bacteria have a broad beneficial effect on the immune system and inflammation. Bacteria have other benefits for human health as well. In contrast, vaccination is directed against one germ only.

When we think about all this, it seems absolutely astonishing that your whole immune system works better thanks to a simple injection of bacteria. This may even be a treatment option for autoimmune diseases and allergies.^[9]

1 Fecal Transplant

Considering all the beneficial effects of the proper gut flora on human health, it is not surprising that there is strong interest in fecal transplantation—the transfer of stool from a healthy to a diseased person. Gross as this may seem at first, did you ever think about the stool of patients with colitis? We won’t go into detail here, but it is not a pretty sight.

People are more concerned with the safety issues associated with fecal transplantation. As there are few long-term studies on the effects of fecal transplantation in humans, it is not clear if the positive effects observed in the short term will be sustained over time. Also, the risks of any long-term negative consequences, such as infections, are unclear.

Under Canadian and US regulations, the stool used for fecal transplantation is a biological product and drug. If strict safety measures are observed, it may be used for the treatment of Clostridium difficile infections when other treatments are unsuccessful. Results are quite promising.

However, clinical results with fecal transplantation for the treatment of irritable bowel disease are not as clear yet. This is probably because there are many factors involved in this pathology.^[10]

Nevertheless, studies are under way to explore the role for the gut microbiota in many other conditions, such as liver disease, colorectal and other cancers, and even autism.

Erwin Vandenburg is a scientist and one of the founders of sciencebriefss, an organization aiming to present new scientific knowledge in a concise and clear manner to the general public.

We all know about woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats, but such is evolution that all species have some pretty weird ancestors. Often they look nothing alike. From the least unexpected to the most, here are 10 of the weirdest of all.

10. The short-necked giraffe

The giraffe’s prehistoric forebear was roughly the size of a bull moose, complete with similarly large antlers. Sivatherium (along with Bramatherium and others) had a long neck to graze on treetops in Eurasia millions of years ago, but only about half as long as the present-day giraffe’s. Nevertheless, it’s thought to have been the largest ruminant (hoofed grazing animal) that has ever existed. 

Interestingly, although the fossil evidence dates it to millions of years ago, it may have survived to much later. Not only do cave paintings depict the animal but a copper rein ring found by archeologists excavating the ancient Mesopotamian city of Kish also appears to feature a detailed image of Sivatherium.

9. The vested ant

Ants may be the most successful animal on Earth, comprising up to a quarter of the biomass in tropical regions and a fifth of the biomass in general. The ant family Formicidae has proliferated into more than 9,500 species known to science and an estimated 3,000-9,000 species yet to be described. They’ve also existed for millions of years, and continue to live in harmonious symbiosis with their planet. 

However, little is known about how they originated. The earliest fossil evidence is from the mid-Cretaceous just 100 million years ago, when their planetary dominion was still in its fledgling stages. And there are few clues as to what came before. Instead, our best theories come from comparing ants to species living today. Their hive-like colonies, for example, bear similarities to those of wasps and bees — especially given that all generally center on a single mother, the queen. 

But there’s one species of wasp to which researchers think the ant is most closely related: the mud dauber. Female mud daubers are known to house their eggs in carefully built mud cylinders. Then they find a victim, paralyze it, and seal it inside the nest with their eggs so that when they hatch the larvae have something to feed on. It’s thought the original proto-ants started out the same way, “building simple nests and delivering food to their offspring.” Then when the offspring grew up, it may have helped the mother raise more.

8. The four-legged fish

It might not be such a stretch to imagine that frogs evolved from fishes, but the intermediate creatures did look bizarre. Icthyostega was one of the first, living as long as 364 million years ago. It was, in many ways, a fish. It had scales, vestigial gill bones, and a dorsal fin along the length of its tail. But Icthyostega, which grew to three feet, also had four fleshy limbs, each with digits, as well as strong ribs for dwelling on land. Unlike fish, it also had lungs.

Obviously this traits emerged slowly. Most of them developed while Icthyostega’s forebears were still living fully aquatic lives. The limbs, for example, gradually evolved from ‘lobe-fins’, which looked like and served as fleshy paddles. The lungs also probably evolved underwater. 

7. “Adam and Eve” the worm

Despite our differences, what all animals (except sponges and jellyfish) have in common is a bilaterally symmetrical body (mirrored left and right), along with a front side with a mouth and a back side with an anus. We are the ‘bilaterians’. And scientists think the earliest ancestor of us all was “a sluggish blob about the size of a grain of rice” called Ikaria wariootia. 

Discovered in the Australian outback from fossilized burrowing traces, it’s dated to the Edicaran Period (560-551 million years ago). It differs from other possible candidates, such as Dickinsonia, by its possession of a mouth and gut.

This, then, is the ancestor of all other creatures on this list, as well as the creatures reading it.

6. The horned horse

The prehistoric Brontotheres had a special place in Sioux mythology. Known from its fossilized bones, it was called the Thunder Horse and was said to come down in storms and trample on the buffalo. True or not, the Brontotheres was indeed a fierce beast — the largest mammals in the whole of North America during the Eocene.

One species, for example, the 8-foot tall, 15-foot long Megacerops, had a pair of long horns which it probably used for headbutting. Emblotherium, meanwhile, had just one horn — long like a battering ram — containing its nasal bones. It’s thought it may have been used to make loud vocalizations across long distances. 

All Brontotheres were extinct by the end of the Eocene, but their relatives today include rhinos, tapirs, and… horses! In fact, aside from the horns and their common depiction as rhino-like, they may have looked quite similar to horses — at least in the head, on account of their elongated skulls.

5. The meat-eating ground sloth

The so-called “great beast from America,” Megatherium americanum, looked similar to the sloths of today — except ten times the size. Weighing roughly the same as a bull elephant, it stood up to 12 feet tall on its hind legs. Needless to say, it lived on the ground and not in the trees. 

Unlike present-day sloths, ground sloths ate meat in addition to plants to support this great size. But they probably scavenged from kills made by big cats, wolves, and so on, rather than hunting for themselves. 

They were still roaming the pampas of Argentina and elsewhere in South America as late as the Holocene 8,000 years ago, living with early humans. In fact, humans are thought to have hunted ground sloths to extinction. Although some think they survive to this day.

4. The towering hornless rhino

You may have heard of the woolly rhinoceros, which went extinct around 12,000 years ago. They were a common subject of cave paintings. As the name suggests, they all had woolly coats. And, curiously, one species of woolly rhino had two horns instead of one.

But they were nothing compared to the mighty Paraceratherium. Over 26 feet long, the rhino’s ancestor from 35-20 million years ago was tall with a long, brontosaurus-like neck. It weighed as much as five adult elephants (15-30 tons). And, weirdest of all perhaps, for the rhino’s distant forebear, it had no horns at all.

It’s thought that elephants (not humans for a change) destroyed Paraceratherium’s habitat by stripping and felling trees, driving the giant to extinction. But there’s still much we don’t know about this dino-like mammal. For example, we still haven’t even pieced together a full Paraceratherium skeleton.

3. The giant beaver

Imagine a beaver taller than a human, weighing 200 pounds with six-inch incisors, and you’ve imagined the genus Castoroides. This shaggy-haired giant beavered away in North American woodlands from 3 million to 10,000 years ago, when it’s thought to have been hunted to extinction by humans. It’s likely that both their meat and their fur was in demand.

Like the present-day beaver, Castoroides had large gnawing teeth and lived on plants. It was also partially aquatic, probably because it was an easy mark on land for predators like the saber-toothed tiger. 

As to whether it built giant dams, though, it’s not entirely clear. No evidence remains except, possibly, a four-foot high one in Ohio.

2. The ferocious pangolin

The dominant carnivorous mammals 55-35 million years ago were the Creodonts, relatives of the present-day pangolin. What makes this all the more interesting for such a timid-seeming creature is that Creodonta means “meat teeth,” and the pangolin doesn’t have any. Instead, they gather up insects with their tongues, earning the nickname “scaly anteater” despite not being related at all.

So what were the phylogenetic ancestors of the pangolin like? Of the roughly 30 species, perhaps the most impressive are the Hyaenodontids. Named for their hyena-like teeth adapted for shearing flesh as opposed to clamping down, these species hunted in packs like wolves — usually at night. Some of the larger Hyaenodontids, like the 4.5-foot tall, 10-foot long, 1100-pound Hyaenodon gigas, may have hunted alone in the day.

1. The land-based whale

How do mammals end up in the sea? Whales, dolphins, seals, walruses, and so on all descend from species that once roamed the land. The pinnipeds, for example (seals, walruses, and sea lions), are thought to have evolved from primitive bears, just like their land-lubber cousins the weasels, otters, and skunks. The sirenians or sea cows, meanwhile, appear to be related to elephants, as well as that most unlikely of elephant relatives the hyrax. 

The most iconic group of ocean-dwelling mammals, however, the cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises, narhwals), descend from something unrecognizable — a creature that “ran like a wolf … waded like a hippopotamus … put its ear to the ground to hear distant rumbles … [and] had the ankles of a cow.” Pakicetus had the body of a land mammal but the distinctive long skull of a whale. Preying on animals both on land and in water, it lived around the edges of the shallow Tethys Sea 50 million years ago.

They say that only two things in life are guaranteed: death and taxes. If you’re not a human, then that means only one thing is guaranteed. And even though we all have to die sometime, we sure don’t all get to go out the same way.

The animal kingdom can be brutal and death can come from predators, lack of habitat, lack of resources, and dozens of other reasons. But some species have unique and bizarre hazards that only they face. Let’s take a look at ten of the most unusual.

10. The Suicide Palm Flowers to Death

With a name like “suicide palm,” it’s clear that this particular plant has an unusual story. It grows in Madagascar and was only discovered back in 2006. Though it has the less grim name of Tahina, the morbid “suicide plan” name came from the tree’s remarkably unusual life cycle. 

For decades, the tree will grow up to a height of as much as 18 meters or nearly 60 feet. Then it blossoms for the first and only time. Nectar-filled blossoms cover the tree numbering in the millions. These will eventually turn into fruit. Producing the flowers and fruit takes every resource the tree has, and it is unable to survive the process. The tree dies and the fruit will litter the ground around their dead progenitor. 

The fruit can obviously give rise to a new generation of trees if the seeds take root and are able to grow, but if something didn’t work out, then the plant would simply die out in that location thanks to its all-or-nothing reproduction plan.

9. Australian Jewel Beetles Loved Beer Bottles to Death

Insects get a lot of credit for their seemingly remarkable abilities to organize and perform tasks but, realistically, that’s mostly reserved for bees and ants. The rest of the insect kingdom is generally overlooked, and maybe that’s for good reason, at least when it comes to something like the Australian jewel beetle. These poor little creatures have one claim to fame and it’s not a complex hive organization or their industrious nature. It’s that they’ll kill themselves trying to mate with beer bottles.

Researchers discovered the habit of the Australian beetles by accident some years ago. In the field, two scientists were studying something else altogether but happened to notice these beetles giving their best effort with discarded beer bottles. 

Numerous beetles and numerous bottles indicated it wasn’t just a fluke. These bugs were trying to get busy and there was no mistake. In scientific terms, they were able to observe that the beetles were definitely attempting to mate.They even set up new bottles and observed that they attracted more males for would latch on and had to be forcefully removed to get them to stop. One even continued even as ants bit its genitals.

The researchers noted that the female beetles were almost exactly the same shade of brown as the specific brand of bottles that the beetles had chosen. And, just like bottles, the females had a dimpled carapace. So the males were simply confused. But they were so committed that they would continue even unto death in the sun or plucked off and eaten by predators. 

The story does have a happy ending, however. After the scientists released their findings, the company that made the seductive bottles changed the design to remove the confusing dimples. The beetles then lost interest. 

8. The Longhorn Cowfish Poisons Itself

If you’re into saltwater aquariums, you may already know about the longhorn cowfish. They’re popular among exotic fish enthusiasts because of their bright yellow color and their extremely unusual appearance. But keeping them in an aquarium presents a unique danger in the form of their natural self-defense abilities.

Most animals have some way to defend themselves, and the cowfish pulls this off by way of an ostracitoxin it can release. So it’s a poisonous fish. But again, that’s not so unusual. Lots of creatures are toxic or venomous in some way. The problem with the longhorn cowfish is that it’s not immune to its own toxins. So if the fish gets too excited or feels threatened, the toxin will fill the aquarium and not just kill all the other fish, it will kill itself as well. 

The toxin can be removed from a tank with activated carbon, but if you need to do that, it’s likely everything will have died already. 

7. Babirusa Tusks Can Pierce Their Own Skulls

A babirusa looks like a wild boar that someone tried to draw from memory after seeing it only once in passing. Sometimes called deer pigs, they’re native to parts of Indonesia. The most notable feature of a male babirusa is their remarkably long, curving tusks. Unlike a boar, they have two sets of two, not just one. While they have the expected set you’d expect to see protruding from their lower jaw, they also have an upward curving pair of canine tusks on their upper jaw as well. These tusks do not extend up outside of their mouths, instead they actually pierce through the animal’s snout flesh. As far as we know, they’re the only animal in the world with teeth that grow vertically like this.

It’s this pair of tusks that can become a lethal complication for the animal. As they grow, they curve inward, extending up and over its eyes. 

The babirusa must find a way to wear those tusks down, either against trees or rocks. If it doesn’t, the tusks can curve around and pierce through the skull, killing it. 

6. Army Ant Mills

Ants can live in colonies that house anywhere from 1,000 to 100,000 members. While these colonies can be huge, they work because the members all work together. But sometimes they work together too well. Or too poorly, as the case may be. When individual members lack autonomy, one ant can follow another ant towards certain doom. This is what’s at the heart of an ant mill, the phenomenon which occurs in army ant colonies now and then.

Army ants have some unique features that separate them from other species. One is that they don’t have permanent nests like many other ant species, so they’re always on the hunt for new food sources.. Another is that they are blind. And that works for them because they use their other senses to forage for food. 

When things work as planned, the head ant will lead the others by leaving a pheromone trail. The other ants follow the smell towards their goal. But if something goes wrong, and the lead ant doubles back, for instance, the other ants will follow that trail and the lead ant may also get caught following its own trail. This leads to the ants walking in circles, following trails that go nowhere. And because they’re not designed to do anything different, the ants will continue in these spirals until all of them die of exhaustion. 

5. Demodex Mites Eat Until They Die

Right now, on your face, is an entire ecosystem you never see. Microscopic demodex mites are very likely living it up in your hair follicles and pores, feasting on your secretions and oils. It’s believed skin conditions like rosacea are caused by too many of these little critters taking up residence in your flesh. The method of how and why this happens is truly bizarre and more than a little offputting.

The older you are, the more likely you are to have the mites, and they seem to be shared through direct contact. They like oily skin best and are most likely to be found on your face. And while they might live a happy life on your face eating cells around hair follicles and sebum you secrete, they can’t actually get rid of anything they eat because they don’t come equipped with an anus. 

With no way to remove waste, the mites just get bigger and bigger as they eat until they finally die and their filthy corpses are left in your flesh..

4. Dolphins Sometimes Commit Suicide

Dolphins are considered some of the smartest animals in the world, second only to humans and more intelligent than primates. They are capable of solving problems and abstract thought and, it seems, a lot of emotional turmoil. So much so that dolphins can even take their own lives.

Knowing that a dolphin can think about the world in almost the same way as a human, it changes how something like a dolphin show at an aquarium works. Imagine if someone was forcing you to swim and do tricks for a crowd every day. Or perform on camera, as was the case with Kathy, one of the dolphins that played Flipper on the TV series.

Trainer Richard O’Barry said he was in the tank the day Kathy killed herself. He claimed she sank to the bottom and stopped breathing. Dolphins must consciously control their own breathing, so if one were so inclined to simply suffocate, it could probably do so easily enough. 

In the 1960s, NASA was trying to train a dolphin named Peter to speak English. In a bizarre twist, Peter fell in love with his trainer Margate Howe Lovatt with who, he trained six days a week. You may have heard the unusual details of that story when they made the news a few years back as the media was rather taken with the specific detail of how physical that relationship between human and dolphin got.

That aside, the experiments ended abruptly and Lovatt was fired. Peter was moved to a new tank and left alone. He voluntarily stopped breathing as well, sinking to the bottom and dying, just as Kathy had. 

3. Shrews Need to Eat Their Own Body Weight Every Day

A shrew is often used as a pejorative term for someone who is a nag. Realistically, it should be a term for someone who eats like a fiend. A shrew’s metabolism is hard to imagine. Their hearts can beat 800 to 1,000 times per minute. One species even breaks 1,500 times per minute.

They can move 12 times per second and if they don’t eat their body weight every day, they die. A short-tailed shrew needs to eat three times its weight. If they even go a few hours without eating, it could be fatal.

2. Female Ferrets Must Mate or Die

Like shrews, ferrets are beholden to a biological imperative that can be deadly. Female ferrets go into estrus, or heat, like many other mammals. But the difference with ferrets is that if they don’t mate, they won’t survive the process.

Pet ferrets need to be spayed or neutered. First and foremost, it reduces their somewhat objectionable odor. But it also saves the lives of the females because those that don’t mate will die from aplastic anemia. This is due to imbalanced hormone levels caused by the ferret going into heat but not successfully mating. The hormones affect blood production and the fatal anemia soon follows. 

1. The Australian Antechinus Mates Until it Dies

Going from a creature that will die if it doesn’t mate to one that will die because it mated, we have the Australian antechinus. These little mouse-like marsupials experience either the greatest or worst ending of any life, depending on your perspective and/or sense of humor.

Every year, males of the species are obliterated as they attempt to continue their genetic line. For upwards of 14 hours at a time for several weeks on end, they mate with females or fight off other males. This continues until they die. 

The testosterone that floods their little bodies interferes with various stress hormone levels. This, in turn, completely destroys their immune systems and eventually they collapse and die as a result. 

As bizarre as this sounds from an evolutionary standpoint, it actually helps the species out. With the male population destroyed, the pregnant females have less competition for food and are able to eat and provide for their young.