Weird Animals

We need some (non-naked mole rat) mammals up in here, so, whales with internal antlers: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/07/31/do-beaked-whales-have-internal-antlers/

In UNWEIRD developments:

Melanocetus johnsonii, along with the four other anglerfish that make up genus Melanocetus, don’t have parasitic males. Males of this genus are still significantly smaller and lack lures, but they retain their free-swimming lifestyle into adulthood, occasionally biting into the side of a much larger female for a temporary coupling, where gametes and food are exchanged. This temporary coupling, in which no tissue fusion takes place, has been observed only three times: once during the filming of the BBC Blue Planet documentary; once off the coast of Japan; and once, confusingly between a male Melanocetus johnsonii and a completely different species, Centrophryne spinulosa. In none of these instances was the connection permanent, and no reduced males have even been found attached to a Melanocetus.

:(

HUEG PENGU: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/08/12/extinct-mega-penguin-tall-as-person/

Pretty:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/files/2014/08/young-boomslang.jpg

But don't get bitten by one: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/2014/08/10/this-snakes-venom-makes-you-bleed-from-every-orifice-until-you-die/

Interestingly, many bite victims report “seeing with a yellow tinge,” which may be due to bleeding inside the eyes.

<3

BOOMSLANG
this is a great DJ name too
first album could be "seeing with a yellow tinge"

Interestingly, many bite victims report “seeing with a yellow tinge,” which may be due to bleeding inside the eyes.
― OH MY GOD HE'S OOGLEEE (Leee), Monday, August 18, 2014 1:35 PM (9 hours ago) Bookmark

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthopsia

Blood in the retina usually looks dark, like a shadow, blood in the vitreous (the jellied eyeball itself) looks red.

Sodium channel blockade produces yellow vision by affecting cone function. Many neurotoxins produce this effect.

Famously (for doctors), digitalis / digoxin treatment, especially in overdose, can produce yellow vision.

Meanwhile Viagra can produce cyanopsia (blue-tinged or -haloed vision).

themoreyouknow.gif

Thanks for the correction, Plas!

https://31.media.tumblr.com/927b985287cd92d54558166776248eef/tumblr_nao4mxBFeC1qm9k25o2_500.gif

http://montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com/post/95559080028/plankton-of-the-world-beware-while-most

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qQcM9yytSI#t=30

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/08/22/blackbird-unleashes-hell-golden-gate-park/

ha ha that bird got them good

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/octopus-chronicles/2014/08/27/dumbo-octopus-gives-rare-view-video-2/

♥

On mites:

The mites have this helpful habit where they… er… have no anus and never poo. Instead, they release a lifetime’s worth of waste when they die.

Face mites, to be specific.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/08/27/you-almost-certainly-have-mites-on-your-face/

http://www.wired.com/2014/08/absurd-creature-of-the-week-the-bird-that-builds-nests-so-huge-they-pull-down-trees/?mbid=social_twitter

http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/172598779edit-660x439.jpg

For its size (and lack of opposable thumbs) though, Africa’s incredible social weaver surely comes close. These birds, about the size of the sparrows here in the States, come together in colonies of as many as 500 individuals to build by far the most enormous nests on Earth, at more than 2,000 pounds and 20 feet long by 13 feet wide by 7 feet thick. The structures are so big they can collapse the trees they’re built in, and so well-constructed they can last for a century, according to Gavin Leighton, a biologist at the University of Miami. Occupying as many as 100 chambers, these are quite possibly the biggest vertebrate societies centered around a single structure—outside of human beings and their skyscrapers, of course.

that is REALLY interesting!

I'm posting this without having read it and hoping that the name of the animal -- Hallucigenia -- bears out its weirdness.

http://theconversation.com/the-worlds-weirdest-creature-finds-descendants-in-cuddly-velvet-worms-30438

given that it looks like an MC Escher sketch, ahma say "yes"
http://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/56615/width668/4jhzkpk2-1408108417.jpg

http://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/56615/width668/4jhzkpk2-1408108417.jpg

https://twitter.com/Strange_Animals

https://www.google.com/search?q=black+rain+frog&tbm=isch

Black rain frog is the best google image search

http://i.imgur.com/Bal6dIR.jpg

♥

Probably dying from that frog-killing fungus though.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/09/08/when-your-preys-in-a-hole-and-you-dont-have-a-pole-use-a-moray/

In which a fish does as well as a chimp in a collaborative problem-solving test.

fish: smart enough to collaborate and choose an ideal collaborator. not smart enough to tell the difference between a real fish and a plastic cut-out.

lol.

Made me think of the Portia hunting spider, which has a tiny little brain but does really complicated thinking by using its brain one way, "saving" the result, reconfiguring its brain, doing more claculating, "saving" the result again, reconfiguring its brain again, etc etc, until it solves a difficult problem.

http://www.minibeastwildlife.com.au/Portia.htm
http://www.rifters.com/real/2009/01/iterating-towards-bethlehem.html

the pic is great:
http://www.minibeastwildlife.com.au/Portia%20on%20stem%20350.jpg
"not sure if intelligent, or dumb"

there's sadness behind those eyes

Must be a Cleveland sports fan.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/28838200

Ostracods are one of the ocean-living animals which give off light when they are disturbed.

[...]

When an ostracod is swallowed, it emits a burst of light, making the cardinal fish spit it out.

my ostracod don't want none unless you got bursts of light hon

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p027f9q0

thanks for giving me nightmares for the week

OMFG THAT IS AWESOME.

/barfs

I can just about fap to that

Docking in the animal kingdom

Pink fairy armadillo

http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/images_blogs/wiredscience/2013/12/C.jpg

!!!

http://gawker.com/ever-see-a-whale-eat-a-shark-1640134129

http://i.imgur.com/4Fe33Dd.gif

As adults, the weevils use their microbes for one very specific purpose: to mass-produce the building blocks they need to create their hard outer shells. This takes a week. After that, the shells are secure and the bacteria have outlived their usefulness.

So the weevil kills them.

It packages them up, breaks them down, and recycles their molecules for its own use. Their existence is a loan, and the weevil eventually demands repayment.

Cold! http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/09/25/lessons-from-nature-recycle-allies-that-stop-being-useful/

https://33.media.tumblr.com/746b595d9d441579741e69eac5a711d2/tumblr_ndk7blzHsr1qm9k25o3_400.jpg

Or rather:

https://33.media.tumblr.com/746b595d9d441579741e69eac5a711d2/tumblr_ndk7blzHsr1qm9k25o3_400.jpg

File under, "Thug Animals":

On an Argentinian lake in November of 1981, Gary Nuechterlein witnessed a rather disturbing avian assault. A male steamer duck bit and held tight to the neck of another duck called a shoveler, while pummeling the victim with the keratinized knobs on its wings. Meanwhile, “several meters away,” Nuechterlein later wrote in a paper, “a female steamer duck displayed excitedly, calling and stretching” her neck to the sky, as if egging him on.
More absurd creatures:

10-Foot Bobbit Worm Is Ocean’s Most Disturbing Predator
The Ferocious Bug That Sucks Prey Dry and Wears Their Corpses
This Marsupial Has Marathon Sex Until It Goes Blind and Drops Dead

From time to time the steamer would drag the shoveler under, then resurface and continue beating the tar out of it as the female watched. At one point he shuffled over to her, but after 30 seconds returned to his victim and punched the poor critter 15 to 20 more times. “He then released the limp body of the shoveler,” wrote Nuechterlein, “pecked at it, and released it again.” At last he returned to the female for good, calling to her while she stretched, and the two flew off together. The shoveler eventually regained consciousness, and though seriously crippled, struggled to shore. It died 15 minutes later.

...

And woe to any of the steamer’s avian neighbors that aren’t gifted with its bulk, because it could be that steamers are so persistently violent not only to chase other species away to reduce competition for their resources, but to make an example of someone. I’ll reiterate: These ducks have evolved mafia tactics. Says Nuechterlein in the paper describing the fight between the steamer and the shoveler: “Possibly observational learning is important, and holding a ‘public beating’ enhances the effectiveness of territorial displays.” And that, my friends, may be the only time “public beating” has ever appeared in a scientific paper.

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/absurd-creature-week-vicious-duck-beats-crap-anything-moves/

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/files/2014/09/octopus-joshua-lambas.jpg

Joshua: This was a pretty exciting image to capture. It’s actually become one of my favourites over the years. When I first saw the [octopus] it was balled up very small and didn’t show the siphonophore tentacles at all. After the first flash of my strobes it unfurled its tentacles, changed colours and presented the the man o’ war tentacles you see in the photo. It was quite a surprise and almost like watching a flower blossom. It took me many years to track down someone that knew what the species was, as it had not been seen many times before. It very likely that it is using the tentacles as a defence against would be predators.

10-Foot Bobbit Worm Is Ocean’s Most Disturbing Predator
The Ferocious Bug That Sucks Prey Dry and Wears Their Corpses
This Marsupial Has Marathon Sex Until It Goes Blind and Drops Dead