Gutsy performance...

However, starfish are not as squeaky clean as you might think. In fact, they can be pretty brutal when they get a bit peckish.

Since they’re covered in suckers on the underside of their limbs they can actually get hold of a clam or other beshelled beastie, grip its crusty casing and pop the fucker open! Not bad for a show of brute strength. I struggle with a knife and fork.

Of course, entry is only half the job (ahem). The starfish doesn’t exactly have a spare hand to get at the meaty bits inside the shell so it pops the old stomach out of its body and into the shell, scoops up the meat in its mess of digestive horrors and yanks the whole affair back inside. Pure satisfaction.

I suppose if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain, so full marks for resourcefulness, you despicable starry glutton!

Death for a frisky fortnight? You've got yourself a deal.

This marsupial is capable of screwing a single partner for up to 12 hours straight, so he’s quite the Don Juan, although fidelity isn’t part of his limited vocabulary. He’s straight onto the next partner as soon as he’s finished and it goes on like that until his body gives in.

You see, the brown antechinus likes getting down and dirty so much that he doesn’t eat or sleep or wash or anything else and eventually his immune system completely shuts down. A high price to pay for one hell of a fortnight, but, one has to admit, not the worst way to go.

Er, you've got a little on your chin.

Unsatisfied with the effect of this deeply unpleasant menu, the turkey vulture actually wants you to abhor it even more ardently.

When threatened by a predator (and this is a rare occurrence given that most starving creatures would balk at chewing a vulture, much as you and I would balk at toe-sucking a leper), the turkey vulture will vomit whatever grotesqueries are lining its stomach right at the aggressor’s feet.

And the worst part? The putrid pool acts as a hellish olive branch which the predator dutifully gobbles up as the turkey vulture makes its merry way unscathed.

Away, turkey demon! My skin doth crawl.

Or maybe these trout didn’t meet their crispy end at the hands of humans. What if they are, in fact, female brown trout and the explanation for their current predicament is the shocking result of their vaguely dishonest behaviour in the sack. What if…

You see, female brown trout are fakers. They are nature’s prick teasers, convincing the naïve male trout in their environs that they’re hitting the spot when they couldn’t be further from it. Yes, female brown trout fake orgasms so that their chaps peak too early and they escape without any further harassment.

Apparently some male trout feel aggrieved in light of this new information. The one with the oven gloves and the Gary Rhodes hairdo certainly looks suspicious.

(I know what you’re thinking though: fish are orgasmic now?)

How did I not know this about porcupines until now? How is this not common knowledge?

Maybe because it’s disgusting.

When a female porcupine is on heat, the bloke ambles around smelling places where she has had a slash and apparently that gets him going.

At that point, the pair engage in a ‘comical dance’. Not sure how this helps, but that’s the non-disgusting part, so I’d advise you to dwell on that for a bit before the big finish.

The big finish is this: After the comical dance, the male urinates all over the female.

Seriously, all over her. Top to toe. He can fire it seven feet, the stream’s that powerful.

The ichneumon wasp is a deeply unpleasant character. Deeply, deeply unpleasant.

No-one likes wasps. No-one sees the point in them. But after reading what follows, this particular wasp will slump even further in your estimation.

The ichneumon injects its eggs into a victim, which is usually a caterpillar. It then paralyses the caterpillar and slowly eats it alive.

Is that bad enough for you to hate the ichneumon wasp? No? How about the fact that it eats all the fat and the digestive system first so that the caterpillar doesn’t die, saving the heart and all the bits it needs to stay alive until last?

What a cad.

It doesn’t seem fair that the creature with the largest penis relative to its body size should be a hermaphrodite. That’s just greedy.

Barnacles have giant schlongs on account of the fact that they don’t leave their shells to mate, meaning the old chap has to venture out on his own. They also have testes towards the back of the head, which seems an odd place to keep them.

Then again, life as a hermaphrodite is pretty weird. There are all sorts of unusual things to contend with. Apparently self-fertilisation is “rare,” but even that seems altogether too likely for most of us.

This is a type of salamander. Would you say it was lacking something?

If you think it lacks arms and legs, you’d be right, but that isn’t its main deficiency. This particular salamander has omitted to grow something else that most of us find rather important.

This is the lungless salamander and that is not just a name. Instead of developing lungs like any sensible creature, our friend here has instead taken the lazy option.

“I don’t want lungs,” it has said. “I’m going to breathe through my skin.”

What a ridiculous decision and the joke’s on him, because he has to keep his skin moist at all times just so that he can breathe.

Idiot.