Weird Animals

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11392825/Mystery-tuna-creature-is-tongue-eating-parasite-says-expert.html

http://i.imgur.com/X3wROMM.jpg

I think it's so cute <3

Closeup:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03188/tuna-woman-creatur_3188626c.jpg

<img src="http://education.gtj.org.uk/storage/Components/123/12340_1.JPG";>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnspit_Dog

whoops
http://education.gtj.org.uk/storage/Components/123/12340_1.JPG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnspit_Dog

why have a penis, when you can be a penis?

Why don't they just call it the boner worm

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/287737863668586963/

http://io9.com/newly-discovered-sparklemuffin-peacock-spider-is-here-1688278369
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--W6Bq4VwZ--/c_fit%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_80%2Cw_636/njzreysppbpra1t35jmy.jpg

Iron-shelled snail that lives around hydrothermic vents in the ocean:

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/absurd-creature-of-the-week-scaly-foot-snail/

It even has iron scales on it's foot-stomach.

that peacock spider is so beautiful!

I don't usually like snails, but that scaly foot is pretty damned weird!

On scorpion poop: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/01/29/how-the-scorpion-lost-its-tail-and-its-anus/

urls that switch it up at the last second

I hate these MFs but I can't help but post:

https://33.media.tumblr.com/7f753113a628fcd24a94789dd07f7068/tumblr_nklq0ihpJE1qc6j5yo1_500.gif

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--2rw1a0ZS--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/bnfzyafgcwsaxuckwr9p.jpg

Asp Caterpillar.

Thank you, internet.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/Rainlander/Trummpppffffffhahahaha_zps2a405053.jpg

Not weird animals, per se: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/2015/01/29/heres-why-76-beavers-were-forced-to-skydive-into-the-idaho-wilderness-in-1948/

flora not fauna but holy shit
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2009/06/gympie-gympie-once-stung,-never-forgotten/

The most poisonous plant in the world and it's called Gympie Gympie all just seems so stereotypically Australian...

.

http://www.amnh.org/global-business-development/traveling-exhibitions/life-at-the-limits

Nnnnnngh I'm gonna go

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/464_261/images/live/p0/1t/23/p01t23bt.jpg
along the same lines
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140303-last-place-on-earth-without-life

Extremophiles. ♥

http://www.onearth.org/earthwire/termites-fight-desertification

They are about the size of a Tic Tac. They have no eyes and a see-through gut. They eat poop and farm fungi. And they might be our best allies in the fight against desertification. Who are these climate change warriors?

Termites! Yes, that same lowly insect that likes to chew through the back deck. According to a new report published in the February issue of Science, these critters and the mounds they create are crucial to the resilience of savannahs and other dryland ecosystems across the planet.

“Termite mounds are islands of fertility,” says Robert Pringle, an ecologist at Princeton University and study coauthor.

When you think of termite mounds—if you think of them at all—you might imagine a tall dirt tower, as high as 25 feet. But beneath the ground, the colony can stretch for another 30 feet or more. Termites can survive in extremely dry places, Pringle says, but when it does rain, their subterranean tunnels allow water to penetrate the soil. This encourages vegetation to take root, creating a refuge for other insects, mammals, and birds. Even when the rest of the savannah has withered and died, the mounds remain, like green polka dots on a ruddy field.

Probably have mentioned bone-eating Osedax before, but what the hey: http://www.primerstories.com/primers/primer0020.html

Discovered in 2002, Osedax are a family of annelid worms that can consume bone. They have no heads, mouth or guts.

Instead, the treelike worms grow branches that collect oxygen dissolved in the water, and ‘roots’ that contain symbiotic bacteria. The bacteria pump out acid and enzymes to dissolve the bone, drilling through the bone and anchoring the worm, and they pass on the nutritious protein and fats to their host.
When scientists began to look at the Osedax specimens they had collected, they were puzzled: all the specimens were female. Where were the males? Then they looked more closely. It turns out that Osedax males are dwarfs; they consist of fully mature sperm-producing testes and not much else. And they live inside the bodies of the females, up to hundreds of dwarf males inside a single female.

Haven't read this yet but could it be anything but awesome? http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150313-the-origin-of-the-anus

wau @ osedax

Another article that I intend to read: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/inkfish/2015/03/13/being-stabbed-with-a-mucus-dagger-is-not-even-the-worst-part-of-snail-sex/#.VTgmOa1Viko

First link wasn't that good. :(

Second link is better:

A love dart is a sharp dagger that a snail builds in its body out of calcium carbonate. Before mating, the snail thrusts this dart out of itself and straight into its partner’s flesh. A love dart is not related to a penis (each snail has one of those, too) and doesn’t carry sperm. It’s pure weaponry.

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/consider-the-sponge

A sponge essentially carves organs out of negative space, using its layers and jelly to delineate a complex network of channels and pores, which transport nutrients and waste much like a human kidney or bloodstream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxtKxlR5yqM

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/14-fun-facts-about-marine-ribbon-worms-3156969

That video... WHAT. o_o"

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27317-new-monkey-species-revealed-thanks-to-distinctive-penis.html#.VUvXqNNVhBd

When spiderlings hatch, they’re trapped in the puck. Mom pierces the protective silk to free them — and then she stops eating for the rest of her life. For the next two weeks or so, she feeds the dozens of young by regurgitating a transparent liquid. This slurry mixes what’s left of her last meals plus some of her own guts.

The mother’s midgut had already started breaking down while she guarded the eggs, Salomon and her colleagues report in the April Journal of Arachnology. And by the time the pale youngsters hatch, liquefied gut suitable for baby mouthparts is building up in her abdomen.

As liquid wells out on mom’s face, spiderlings jostle for position, swarming over her head like a face mask of caramel-colored beads. This will be her sole brood of hatchlings, and she regurgitates 41 percent of her body mass to feed her spiderlings.

But her young take even more,possibly at her invitation. “She makes no attempt to escape,” Salomon says. Spiderlings pierce her abdomen with their mouthparts and over the course of several hours drain her innards.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/when-mom-serves-herself-dinner

Lots of gems here: http://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/animal-behaviour/in-africa-some-food-chains-are-powered-by-hippo-poop

That spider one needs a five minute Herzog short about it.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/150427-caterpillars-tentacles-rainforests-animals-peru-science/

http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/23/spider-decoy/

Caterpillars! Tentacles! Rainforests! Animals! Peru! SCIENCE!

Next on syfy

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

Best name ever, also its other name is perfect, so mathematically the best creature ever.

http://www.eversostrange.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/pigbutt-worm.jpg

Great article: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/05/the-dragon-autopsy/393890/

fascinatin'; though I would like more pictures

So the Halibut and the Flounder start out with two eyes on either side of its head like normal fish, then one eye migrates from one side of its head to the other resulting in two eyes on the same side:

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR0GiE_It0n5xxKeWmrduUyu45k-wG0pU0tltGJsqkhZOiYDj7szA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaE-LwDowcU

Coconut octopus. :D

i am really guilty that i find them so delicious as they appear to be inordinately intelligent

Don't forget about pigs re: edible intelligence.