While this strategy does lessen breeding opportunities, that population dip is more than evened out by a stellar increase in the survival rates for both adult females and cubs. And the males? As absentee parents, they don't reap any benefits from walking around with a few adorable bullet shields. So unless they want to keep winding up as rugs on the floor, they should stop wandering off to get drunk on rotten berries and stay at home like a proper papa.

Related: 5 Ridiculous (But Serious) Ways Humans Are Destroying Earth

Thanks to this "urban evolution," the anole can now easily climb up straight walls and even glass windows. Even new generations raised by scientists in sterile conditions managed to keep their bigger and stickier feet, meaning that in less than a century, these lizards have changed their very genes to better emulate a Garfield Stuck On You.

Related: 7 Animals That Are Evolving Right Before Our Eyes

Cliff swallows have spent generations making their nests in cliff-side crevices, hence the name. But in response to rapid urbanization, they decided to ditch their old breeding grounds in favor of some uptown real estate under highway bridges and overpasses. Sadly, as a result, a large number of Nebraskan cliff swallows have met their swift and brutal doom at the receiving end of a truck grill. But since the 1980s, the number of roadkill swallows has been taking a nosedive, despite the number of nests still growing by the year. What's their secret to surviving the killer city traffic? Making themselves more compact and sporty by reducing their wingspan.

According to a study by the University of Tulsa, the sharp decline in the number of deaths was matched by an equally rapid shrinking of the birds' wings. Having shorter wings means it's easier for the birds to take off faster and more vertically -- something that comes in pretty handy when an 18-wheeler is barreling toward you at 70 miles per hour. The change isn't even that impressive; only a few millimeters have been shaved off the wing in general, but that tiny difference is enough for countless swallows to beat the traffic with style.

Related: 6 Ways Nature Cleans Up Our Messes Better Than We Do

So why would these spiders renounce their allegiance to the darkness? Simple, because their prey like it too. City insects are drawn to nighttime lighting like a moth to a 150w LED bulb. As a result, the spiders whose ancestors tolerated the bright lights of the big city were able to catch up to four times more prey than their shadow-dwelling throwbacks. Anyway, that's why the future will bring us killer laser spider infestations.

Related: 5 Shockingly Creative Ways Animals Are Using Our Garbage

E. Reid Ross has a couple books, Nature Is The Worst: 500 Reasons You'll Never Want To Go Outside Again and Canadabis: The Canadian Weed Reader, both available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

For more, check out 5 Animals Who Can't Hide Their Disdain For People:

The first-ever Cracked Podcast LIVE TOUR is coming to a city near (some of) you this spring! Tickets on sale now for Chicago IL (April 11th) and St. Paul MN (April 12th).

Follow us on Facebook. Because we said so.