Number 9: Chernobyl Frogs
In the year 1986, reactor number four at Chernobyl exploded due to human errors. The area became so contaminated that people had to flee, but the frogs had nowhere to go. They stayed, and their bodies had to do something that should never have been necessary.

The eastern tree frog is bright green and always was. But the frogs that lived near the reactor began to change color. The darker ones survived the radiation better, they reproduced more, and generation after generation, the green disappeared. Today, they are completely black. Their bodies produced more melanin to protect themselves from the radiation in the area.

All that change occurred in just 10 or 15 generations—in an instant. But the most disturbing thing is not that they changed color, it is what that means. Chernobyl is not the only nuclear disaster in history, and it will not be the last. Every time we fail, something living pays the consequences. We flee, but they stay and have to rebuild themselves from the inside to survive what we broke. The problem is that we are still not sure what kind of creature has been formed or what kind of diseases it might have.

"What stupidity. Hey, Benny, spit out those radioactive frogs, your stomach is going to hurt."