Not an animal, but part fungus, and fungii are weird. Plus corals are animals, and many have a very similar relationship to algae. It seems what we knew about the symbiotic relationship between fungus and algae that make lichens has been wrong for the past 150 years. How a Guy From a Montana Trailer Park Overturned 150 Years of Biology
It's a great story and Ed Yong tells it well. The 'seals in Vietnamese forests' thing involved some local Kunming folks
I found Y. pestis while identifying natural fauna in raw milk here by PCR. A minor part of the project, so weren't confirming the results beyond that.
In Papua New Guinea there is a weevil that (somehow) provides a nice setting for lichen to grow on its back (wing covers, elytra): There is a nicer version of this artistic representation elsewhere on web, but that file does not open reliably. I call 'amazing' here because lichens are notoriously slow growers, and insects rarely live long as adults.
Do not go back in time 75 million years. If you do, stay away from the water: When Deinosuchus Ruled the Earth | Hakai Magazine
Today I learned about the barnacle goose. The barnacle goose is one of nature’s most truly metal creations - SBNation.com
