Nature's Gamblers

The story of risky lives, of wonderful adaptations and elegant symbiosis. It is also the story of the price that this specialisation can cost a species, of how life can become so specialised and attuned to a particular ecological niche that it evolves itself into extinction. We applaud life survival strategies that neatly exploit a particular evolutionary strength, but we often forget that such risks can make an animal or plant vulnerable. Will these creatures be able to adapt again to a changing world? Only time will tell, but the past is littered with such failed 'success' stories.