One of the most common sights on our roads is "flattened fauna", animals who have been run over by cars. Sadly, these animals are the victims of massive societal change. Most Australian animals are nocturnal and they’re mostly grey or grey-brown in colour. For a long, long time, that has been to their advantage. If you’re a dark colour and roam around at night you’re very difficult for predators to see. But it’s those very features that work against the animals when they’re on the road. We don’t see them very easily so they end up flattened.
Yet even when they can be seen many of animals have a defensive strategy that just doesn’t work against motor vehicles. In Iowa, USA, the most common type of roadkill is the skunk. Its defence pattern is to stay where it is and release its foul smelling odour. Now that might work against an animal predator, but it’s doesn’t have much effect on a speeding semi. If you go to Texas the armadillo is the most common type of roadkill. It defends itself by rolling up into a little armoured ball or by jumping into the air to make itself look bigger. Again, this can be very effective against other animals, but it doesn’t stop a heavy motor vehicle from flattening it.
These animals are victims of change. The rise of the motor vehicle and the spread of roads has meant their age old survival strategies don’t work. If they’re going to survive they need to find some new strategies.
The same is often true for us. Strategies that worked in the past don’t work so well in changed situations.
Source: Scott Higgins. Scientific information from Karl Kruszelnicki’s New
Moments in Science #3.
Applications: change, strategy