Weird Animals

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

http://deepseanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Rocha4.jpg

http://deepseanews.com/2014/10/interview-with-the-vampire-blennies/

http://i.imgur.com/7wbVOVe.gif

!!

Is that a velvet worm?

that's a cronenberg lipped nightmare is what that is

Blue Velvet worm then.

candycoloredclownfish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMUYyCSNsbs

That's not weird, that's gross. (I hate crustaceans.)

Meanwhile:

A fish swims in the Amazon, amid murky water and overgrown vegetation. It is concealed, but it’s not safe. Suddenly, two rapid bursts of electricity course through the water, activating the neurons that control the fish’s muscles. It twitches, giving away its position, and dooming itself. Now, it gets zapped by a continuous volley of electric pulses. All its muscles contract and its body stiffens. It can’t escape; it can’t even move. Its attacker—an electric eel—moves in for the kill.

The electric eel can (in)famously create its own electricity. More than four-fifths of its two-metre-long body consists of special battery-like cells, which can collectively deliver a jolt of up to 600 volts. But the way the eel uses that ability is even more shocking. Kenneth Catania from Vanderbilt University has found that this astonishing predator can use its electricity like a remote control, activating its prey’s muscles from afar. It effectively has a button that says “Reveal Yourself” and another that says “Freeze”.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/12/04/electric-eels-can-remotely-control-their-preys-muscles/

The evocatively named snot otter:

http://www.onearth.org/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_image/public/uploaded-files/5371066350_137cd71c92_b.jpg?itok=Ngx9LD5S

http://www.onearth.org/earthwire/snot-otter-sexy-times

http://youtu.be/IakXyq7zz5Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBxsm5T2yN8
A new find at Mariana Trench: a fish that lives deeper in the ocean than anything else ever discovered

Amazing! Pretty delicate looking for living at that depth. (I am not a fish biologist.)

I wonder what would happen to a fish used to that pressure if you took it to near the surface

They'd probably just liquefy, no?

ok I looked it up apparently deep sea fish have 'swim bladders' to alter their buoyancy and the gas pressure as it comes to the surface would make it swell so much it would force the fish's stomach out of its mouth. apparently they have more fluid cell membranes and "ooze internally" and even suffer neurological damage if you bring them up. I hope this has been educational

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgDE2DOICuc

<3 <3 <3

Cuttlefish are the best.

They are super smart!

I'm probably smarter. Probably.

Cuttlefish and octopuses are so awesome.

Infuriated male [sloths] try to hit each other when they are still distant by more than a metre and a half.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/12/24/sloths-and-armadillos-see-the-world-in-black-and-white/

http://wtfevolution.tumblr.com/post/108081475537/hey-everyone-likes-spiders-right-well

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-alaskan-frozen-frogs-20140723-story.html
http://adlayasanimals.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/wood_frog_15.jpg

If you'll pardon the pun: Cool!

Plus:

I'm asking, what about the parasites and all the cool things that live in its mouth and its butt?

Sounds like a forks display name

don't mind if i do

:I

:|

:)

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/01/21/frilled-shark-sea-monster-caught-australia-coast/22099613/

https://40.media.tumblr.com/c0b229d7df10a61f76576ea96d47c442/tumblr_nhu2eg99JW1qm9k25o1_540.jpg

More about this melted foot: http://montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com/post/108919850198/one-serious-snail-the-lewis-moon-snail-polinices