Weird Animals

* Madeleine

Dumbo octopuses looking ugly in old age shockah:

https://67.media.tumblr.com/d0189ca0b2ac6e3edc3e8ad3a401876f/tumblr_ofo06fPJZX1rj5timo1_540.jpg

we should look so good when we're their age

Awwwww, still kind of cute, has a built-in nanna nightie

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/pointy-nosed-blue-chimaeras-ghost-sharks/

ok, that thing is awesome.

couldn't get that video to play, but this one is up and is super awesome even if it's a terrible url
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/ghost-shark-chimaera-penis-head-deep-sea-exploration-a7479201.html

It's partly the same footage. Excellent weird animal though.

just learned about horsehair worms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap8Ts6lv_k0

Bleurgh! (Parasites inspire a primitive revulsion, don't you think?)

I never knew that a mantis's death cries sound so much like a human infant's, it's horrible.

I never seen a mantis cry
Til I seen that mantis die

(Seriously not watching that video tho)

We have a pair of french doors we haven't opened since last summer, opened them yesterday and there was a huge parasitic wasp nest in the gap at the top. Lots of huge paralysed spiders full of baby wasps came raining down on me. not what I wanted.

Well that's a nightmare.

http://gizmodo.com/this-deep-sea-fisherman-posts-his-discoveries-on-twitte-1790323479

h/t vegemite girl

some straight up giger shit in there
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--svrwbNOu--/c_scale%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_80%2Cw_800/bcuihhbnenhzasfg09h5.jpg

If you look at that one upside down it's almost cute.

Worth following the link to see the entire lineup of weird sea creatures. More than a dozen. All creepy as hell and fascinating.

That little angler fish is quite sweet

Moar ghost sharx: https://montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com/post/154740824998/tis-the-season-for-wonder-and-beauty-like-this

Countdown to those Russian photos appearing in clickbait ads. "They found THIS in Chernobyl..."

do not watch if fucking giant fang-faced, brainless nightmare hell centipedes that live on the bottom of the ocean and eat perfectly harmless, cute fish bother you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=93&v=K_7ByiYbCYM

the sand striker/bobbit worm. I think H.R. Giger died of a terminal orgasm he had when he saw this footage.

Oops here it is from the start

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_7ByiYbCYM

Bobbit worms may be accidentally introduced into artificial environments.[4] In March 2009, the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay, Cornwall, discovered a Bobbit worm in one of their tanks. The workers had seen the devastation caused by the worm, such as fish being injured or disappearing and coral being sliced in half, but did not find it until they started taking the display apart in the tank. The worm was nicknamed "Barry".[5]

excellent bump

So that's what happened to amelia earhart

"Barry"?

I recommend trying a GIS for 'silky anteater'.

Aphids are weird!

https://youtu.be/hNzeshvjZdw

that is insane.

I recommend trying a GIS for 'silky anteater'.

The most adorable things with claws like hook hands I've ever seen!

Half squee, half body-horror.

http://gizmodo.com/um-this-wasp-species-has-an-ant-head-for-a-butt-1791281779

http://img04.deviantart.net/446d/i/2012/116/3/d/montezuma_oropendola_by_jamie_macarthur-d4xm116.jpg

meet the montezuma oropendola, a guatemalan bird with bizarre mating rituals and a song that sounds like aphex twin on a good day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HjNZ1a0PTY

Greater fidelity here: http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/127299

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/02/why-frog-tongues-are-so-sticky/515193/

“The analysis helps to explain many bizarre observations, like why frogs use the backs of their eyeballs to push prey down their throats,” says Kiisa Nishikawa from Northern Arizona University. When the insect’s in the frog’s mouth, the frog has to get it off its tongue. Fortunately, all of its adhesive tricks work best in the perpendicular direction—it may be really hard to pull the insect off, but it’s comparably easy to slide it off. The frog just needs something to push against the insect—so it uses its eyeballs. Twelve years ago, Robert Levine used X-ray videos to show that a frog swallows, it retracts its eyeballs inwards, and uses these to push victims off its tongue.

that is remarkably efficient

there are so many amazing phrases in that article

They would launch their sticky tongues at insects with incredible speed and precision

Try to design a wet material that can hit a highly textured object at incredibly high speed and adhere

People have been studying frog tongues since the 19th century

bloody bags full of frog tongues

its saliva flows freely and readily seeps into every crack and gap

Who knows what frog tongues will lead to?

Noel, meanwhile, is turning her attention to cat tongues. They are coated in tiny spines, and Noel wants to know whether these help the felines to groom themselves, to rip meat from bones, or something else. “I’m working with both house-cat tongues and tiger tongues,” she says. “My two favorite animals are cats and frogs and that’s what I’m studying now. It’s a good life.”

#peoplewho'vefiguredouthowtolive

Many studies of sticky animals have led to the development of new materials

yes who can forget 3M's bold research on sellotapeworms

this gecko that can shed its scale sgives me the heebiejeebies

https://i.imgur.com/4MDCBbZ.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/cUCITMm.jpg

the phrase "looks like a raw chicken breast" stuck in my mind's eye

The phrase "googly-eyed penis" stuck in mine.

Did George Lucas know about the bobbit worm before Jedi or was it just chance that he thought up a giant one?

That sand striker footage is just missing a moment where there's a belch followed by a perfectly formed fish skeleton popping out of the sand

Eunice aphroditois are common on soft bottoms in warm waters, and if Lucas were a scuba diver he'd be aware of them. It wasn't known colequially as the Bobbit worm prior 1996, after Loreena Bobbit.

http://i.imgur.com/eSOyd3k.jpg

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

oh i hate that