More Bizarre Animals That You Won’t Believe Actually Exist
We know what you’re thinking — haven’t we read that before? And the answer is both yes and no. Yes, you’ve read our previous article about bizarre animals. And no, that wasn’t all of it. As it turns out, mother nature has a lot more unbelievable beings you just have to take a look at. Here they are.
Shoebill
This large stork-like bird gets its name from the shape of its beak. It sort of looks like a shoe. While it was known to ancient communities in Egypt and Arabia, the bird wasn't actually classified until the nineteenth century, by John Gould.
The bird's best-known feature is its distinctive bill, which they use to catch and hold on to large, slippery fish that they enjoy eating. The birds will stand in the water, motionless until their prey gets close enough. When the time is right, they will dive, or just fall, into the water with their bills open, ready to scoop up some dinner.
Raccoon Dog
Don't let this cute exterior fool you. While both dogs and raccoons are pretty used to living around humans, this creature is 100% a wild animal. Raccoon dogs live in the forests of East Asia and East Europe, where the locals call them by different names, such as neoguri, tanuki, or mangut.
These raccoon-looking wild dogs aren't usually seen outside of their lairs during the daytime. Nocturnal by nature, they prefer to wander around and hunt after the sun goes down.
Giant Isopod
Isopods, for the most part, don't grow to be so large. Something that, as you look at the picture, you're probably happy to hear. Giant isopods are one of the almost twenty species of large isopods in the genus Bathynomus.
Found mostly in the cold, deep waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, their large size is due to something called deep-sea gigantism. It is the tendency for creatures of the deep sea to grow much larger than similar species that reside in shallower water.
Pacu Fish
In most ways, the pacu fish is just like most other fish. In most ways. As you can see from the picture, the pacu fish has a healthy set of chompers that look uncannily like human teeth.
Fishermen from Papua New Guinea, where the fish is found, had to take special precautions to protect...sensitive areas from this fish, which can be aggressive. The pacu fish is related to the piranha, another omnivorous fish with teeth. However, while the piranha has pointed, razor-sharp teeth, the pacu feed mainly on plant material, meaning their teeth are made more for grinding and chewing, not tearing. Pacu can grow up to almost four feet long.
Mantis Shrimp
The mantis shrimp is one of the most unique creatures you're going to see on this list. They're known as sea locusts, prawn killers, and “thumb splitters.” But why, you might ask.
Here's one of the most interesting animal facts you could learn: the mantis shrimp is a predator in tropical and subtropical waters, hunting with only its fists. They're able to strike underwater with such speed and power — an acceleration of more than ten thousand times the force of gravity — that the water they're punching through creates special cavitation bubbles. The bubbles collapse around their prey, creating a force of fifteen hundred newtons.
Hummingbird Hawk-Moth
What happens when you jam three flying animals together into one body? You get the hummingbird hawk-moth. So, which one is this? It turns out it's actually a moth, but just like a hummingbird it feeds on flowers and makes a similar humming sound. It also looks similar to a hummingbird. We're unsure why they decided to add “hawk” to the name. Those scientists are a kooky bunch.
The hummingbird hawk-moth can be found in a great swathe of the northern hemisphere aside from the Americas, from Portugal to Japan, as far south as the equator, and as far north as the Arctic Circle. It's also quite good at recognizing colors.
Umbonia Spinosa
It's a little hard to tell what this animal actually is, but look close enough and you'll see a bug down there. These creatures are also called thorn bugs and are closely related to cicadas, those noisy guys in the trees.
They use their beaks to pierce plant stems and suck out the tasty sap. Their defining characteristic is the large and colorful dorsal horn. The horn gradually tapers to a point, giving it its thorn name. The indigenous people of South America consider the juvenile form of this bug edible since their spines are still soft after molting.
Goblin Shark
Sometimes called a “living fossil,” the goblin shark is the only extant representative of the family Mitsukurinidae, which goes back some 125 million years.
Goblin sharks — we're sure you can come up with your own great name for them — are all around the world, always at depths greater than a hundred meters, with adults being even deeper. While the goblin shark poses no danger to humans, going swimming at night and having this thing brush past you is going to warm up the water around you pretty quickly.
Gobi Jerboa
The Gobi Jerboa, as the name suggests, comes to us from the Gobi desert in China and Mongolia. This species was only discovered a hundred years ago by Glover Morrill Allen.
Researchers are unsure how many members of this species exist, though due to the frequency of encountering them, the conservation status has them placed at the “least concerned” status. With long ears and spindly, jumping legs, the movement of this creature is quick and light. The tail (usually much longer than the body of the animal) often drags on the ground.
Cantor's Giant Soft Shelled Turtle
Ask any third-grader the first thing that comes to their mind about turtles, and you're going to hear their big shells. However, there are some turtles that eschew the tradition, such as this pancake guy.
Consider some of the largest extant freshwater turtles — while some reports say they can grow as long as six feet, other reports dispute the fact. The length of the largest specimen was fifty-one inches, and the heaviest ever found was around five-hundred and fifty pounds. These turtles are, of all things, ambush predators, attacking crustaceans, mollusks, and fish, though they also snack on aquatic plants. It spends ninety-five percent of its life buried and motionless. Same, my dude.
Comments
Post a Comment