zombie (a)musings

I'm watching The Walking Dead on AMC.  It's pretty entertaining, while fairly un-ridiculous.  And on basic cable!  [update: it just got some more ridiculous]  Anyway, I had two great questions brought on by the show that I quickly took to the web. 

The first question was--can zombies swim?  Inquiring minds must want to know, because a plethora of answers had been offered.  Some postulate they'd doggy-paddle; some reckon they'd sink; some figure they'd trudge across the bottom like old-school divers.  Eh.

The second question was, would any animal eat zombies?  Could an animal be relied upon to successfully defend one against zombies?  And might, one day, extinct animals be brought back to protect our zombie-laden future?
So this question wasn't immediately answered, but I stumbled across a website that just warmed the cockles of my heart:

http://www.cracked.com/article_18683_7-scientific-reasons-zombie-outbreak-would-fail-quickly_p1.html

The very first reason mentioned (#7 on the list) answered my question pretty convincingly.  In fact, everything would eat them, down to bacteria.  And depending on the scenario, they'd rot, mummify, stiffen, become crippled, be destroyed by truly modern military abilities, or just be the newest target for all the NRA members currently repressed by the legal restrictions on killing things that move.  Each of these would qualify as, um, setbacks in the ability for zombies both to feed themselves and reproduce, which was related in my favorite point (#1):  both their primary food source and their sole means of reproduction are also found in the one creature that will actively hunt them back (straight from the article: "that's like having to fight a lion every time you to want to have sex or make a sandwich").  In what other creature is that the case?  Besides vampires--but let's not start on vampires.

One dissenter did mention that the list author had not made the distinction between supernaturally-motivated walking dead zombies, and virus-infected, deteriorating flesh hungry creatures who may or may not be wholly dead humans (though--in lieu of a cure--still without all traditional human rights).  However, since I'm worried about MY world being subject to a zombie apocalypse, I'll assume we are not dealing with anything supernatural; I'll proceed to sleep much easier tonight.

I did start wondering, though--if a zombie plague is carried by a virus, then wouldn't the viral genome be able to adapt like any other one?  And if zombies (or rather, the zombie virus) evolve, in which direction would that evolution proceed?  Across species lines, perhaps?  And for the human strain--wouldn't an adaptive virus evolve towards a human vector that doesn't succumb to the pitfalls of the list?  AND if this were true, wouldn't the pinnacle of zombie virus evolution be towards a vector that is essentially the same as a human?  AND if this would happen...well how do we know it hasn't already?

There goes my good sleep.