Weird Animals

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Let's talk about the best weird animals!

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:27 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200407/s1165659.htm

The two new worm species are distantly related to worms found on underwater sea vents deep in the ocean and comprise their own new genus dubbed Osedax, which means "bone-devouring".
[...]
The females have an outer tube, an inner muscular trunk, an egg-carrying oviduct and little docking points for the microscopic males, the researchers report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
[...]
Then they looked closer and found the microscopic males inside the females, living off yolk left over from their larval stages, yet full of sperm.

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:29 (twenty-one years ago)

pangolin pangolin pangolin pangolin

― el sabor de gene (yournullfame), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:33 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.2momluvme.com/muppet/animalpc.jpg

― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.yale.edu/opa/v31.n12/page1b.jpg
Incisivosaurus gauthieri

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/05/images/030122_dromeoart.jpg
Microraptor gui

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:48 (twenty-one years ago)

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/05/images/030122_dromeoart.jpg
Microraptor gui

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:49 (twenty-one years ago)

So I was reading this collection of Stephen Jay Gould essays from 1985 called "The Flamingo's Smile" and he talks about these creatures that have been a source of biological debate for like a century now because they somewhat like a more complicated jellyfish, with a main body and gasbags and feeding tubes and arms and stuff like that, but each part is actually a seperate organism; ie, the reproductive organs are each a seperate living creature, the feeding tube is a seperate living creature, etc. Of course, none of these organisms could survive without the other, since the reproductive organ, for example, wouldn't be able to take in food or kill prey or anything. So the debate is whether this is one organism as a whole, or if it's a colony of seperate organisms. Gould's conclusion, of course, is that it is neither, that it exists on a continuum between organism and colony.

― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I probably garbled that somewhat.

― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:50 (twenty-one years ago)

It's a portugeuse man-o-war, innit?

― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Larry Gowan!

― Huck, Friday, 30 July 2004 20:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Came in clear as a whistle NA.

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it might be a portuegese man-o-war.

― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Isn't that somewhat anomalous to mitochondria in our cells?

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Excellent post NA, too.

Can we get more than a name and pic, like say, a brief description of what makes its awesomeness?

xpost Michael do you mean analogous?

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:56 (twenty-one years ago)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v417/albaalba/pic22508.jpg

Naked mole rat.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:56 (twenty-one years ago)

(awesome because it looks like a penis with teeth, yes, obv.)

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:57 (twenty-one years ago)

flying fish
http://www.hoho.co.uk/assets/images/flying_fish.jpg

― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Michael do you mean analogous?

Yes, but my brane is sputtering.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:04 (twenty-one years ago)

aardvarks!

― Maria D. (Maria D.), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Bats!

― Maria D. (Maria D.), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Australia owns this thread. Wait, I'll find you a platypus.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:50 (twenty-one years ago)

http://images.google.com.au/images?q=tbn:9UCBVfv79NwJ:http://www.kun.nl/fil-beta/platypus.jpg

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:51 (twenty-one years ago)

WHY.

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I was just gonna say platypus. You're right about Australia. How many types of huge non-flying birds do you have?

― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Well there's the emu of course. I don't know of any others. We have some weird sea animals too: step forward, box jellyfish!

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I love portugese man-o-wars! Im sure i'll have to deal with them a lot when I move to the azores.

― Homosexual II (Homosexual II), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, they're beautiful. Anyway, here's a box jellyfish having lunch:

http://www.reefed.edu.au/images/25-7-6.jpg

If one of these stings you, you die. The solution: wear stocking material. Transvestitism has never been so adviseable.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Isn't there a sea creature (like a nudibranch?) whose defense is inverting itself/spewing its inner organs at its predators and making its escape?

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:22 (twenty-one years ago)

you forgot about cassowaries! Those things are evil. I know there was another one, but I think it's extinct now.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Cassowaries have those scary big claws used to disembowel!

I know there was another one, but I think it's extinct now.

That's the rhea which I believe is situated in South America. There was a gigantic flightless bird, something like 15 feet tall, but I think it went extinct during the Ice Age or summat.

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:38 (twenty-one years ago)

No, there was another one native to Australia.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Flying squirrels (or am I thinking of another non-winged flyer/glider?) can glide for an incredibly long distance and land gently, with pin-point accuracy. I wonder if they on the path towards developing wings or not.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:42 (twenty-one years ago)

meerkats look weird - yet cute

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:48 (twenty-one years ago)

After a bit of googling: do you mean the Moas of New Zealand?

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I think so, Lee. It was only mentioned in passing on a TV show.
That illustration looks like the costume Lisa's Brazillian penpal wore,

― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:51 (twenty-one years ago)

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20040726/worm.html?ct=8463.58144496666

But the tiny males are just a bag of sperm and yolk and have no mouth or gut. Instead they live inside the female, and survive on the store of yolk inside their own fatty bodies. Some large females have over 100 males living inside them.

― oops (Oops), Sunday, 1 August 2004 17:41 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.dennisjudd.com/fun/fatcat.jpg

― Gear! (Gear!), Sunday, 1 August 2004 17:47 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/images/c00091.jpg

Kick ass!

― Wooden (Wooden), Sunday, 1 August 2004 18:13 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.rstours.com/assets/images/spotted_nudibranch.jpg

http://www.chaparraltree.com/photos/pp-nudibranch-med.jpg

These are nudibranchs.

― Wooden (Wooden), Sunday, 1 August 2004 18:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Has anybody an idea of what the inside of a marsupial's pouch is like? Is it dry, wet, warm, full of tapioca, what? Aussies, please help me.

― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Sunday, 1 August 2004 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I love portugese man-o-wars! Im sure i'll have to deal with them a lot when I move to the azores.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Sunday, 1 August 2004 21:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Has anybody an idea of what the inside of a marsupial's pouch is like? Is it dry, wet, warm, full of tapioca, what? Aussies, please help me.
-- x j e r e m y

You have seen that Simpsons episode? I've often wondered about that myself.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Sunday, 1 August 2004 21:44 (twenty-one years ago)

haha, Mandee, are you serious??

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Sunday, 1 August 2004 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think she is.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 1 August 2004 21:54 (twenty-one years ago)

good, the concept of a fellow ILXor appearing on my turf was hurting my brane.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Sunday, 1 August 2004 22:03 (twenty-one years ago)

(I mean, it's the only novelty I have, and a crappy one at that, but still!)

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Sunday, 1 August 2004 22:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Hey, I thought that was my novelty!

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 1 August 2004 22:09 (twenty-one years ago)

(ahem, aussies!)

― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Sunday, 1 August 2004 22:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Starfish are weird; they're like some kind of space-alien creature. They pry apart oyster shells and then they turn their own stomachs inside-out and pull them through their mouths into the oyster shells to digest their prey before ingesting them.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 1 August 2004 23:15 (twenty-one years ago)

quokkas are kinda weird, like a cross between a rat, a wallaby and a meerkat

― gem (trisk), Sunday, 1 August 2004 23:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 1123 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/science/contagious-cancer-shellfish-dna.html

Contagious cancers in mollusks, which are some of the few examples of multicellular animals evolving into single-celled organisms (see also: Tasmanian devils, and doggos):

Beata Ujvari, an evolutionary ecologist at Deakin University in Australia who was not involved in the study, said that the massive mutations might be explained by the way the contagious cancers reproduce. Instead of combining two sets of DNA from a shellfish egg and sperm, the cancers clone themselves.
In that way, they’ve become more like bacteria than animals. And like bacteria, they might try to beat their competition — other cancers — by mutating faster, Dr. Ujvari said. She noted that the new cockle study revealed that two different contagious cancers will sometimes invade a single animal.

― Hoisted by your own Picard (Leee), Thursday, 5 October 2023 18:48 (two years ago)

There's hope for chuds:

In the lab, researchers produced images of alternating dark and light stripes, representing the mangrove roots and water, and used them to line the insides of buckets about six inches wide. When the stripes were a stark black and white, representing optimum water clarity, box jellies never got close to the bucket walls. With less contrast between the stripes, however, box jellies immediately began to run into them. This was the scientists’ chance to see if they would learn.
After a handful of collisions, the box jellies changed their behavior. Less than eight minutes after arriving in the bucket, they were swimming 50 percent farther from the pattern on the walls, and they had nearly quadrupled the number of times they performed their about-face maneuver. They seemed to have made a connection between the stripes ahead of them and the sensation of collision.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/science/jellyfish-learning-neurons.html

― Hoisted by your own Picard (Leee), Monday, 9 October 2023 20:32 (two years ago)

Doh, forgot to include the part that mentions that box jellies have no brains and yet are still capable of learning.

― Hoisted by your own Picard (Leee), Monday, 9 October 2023 20:33 (two years ago)

three weeks pass...

Poor frog!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKEu90Zsh4A

― Iguodalai Lama (Leee), Friday, 3 November 2023 17:12 (two years ago)

More beetle but stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFbu21AGSho

― Iguodalai Lama (Leee), Friday, 3 November 2023 17:23 (two years ago)

three weeks pass...

Admittedly not weird and falls into the charismatic megafauna tap but it's my thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvM89vyn5pE

― Rimbaud: First Blood (Leee), Sunday, 26 November 2023 01:09 (two years ago)

Usually, a belly-up fish isn’t long for this world. But video evidence from the deep ocean suggests that some species of anglerfish — the nightmarish deep-sea fish with bioluminescent lures — live their whole lives upside down.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/science/upside-down-angler-fish.html

― Rimbaud: First Blood (Leee), Monday, 4 December 2023 22:31 (two years ago)

Oh, has no one yet posted the absolute nightmare fodder that is the bloodworm aka the befanged extruded anus worm?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL2p9i0wwNg

― Great-Tasting Burger Perceptions (Old Lunch), Monday, 4 December 2023 22:51 (two years ago)

There is no god.

― Rimbaud: First Blood (Leee), Monday, 4 December 2023 23:01 (two years ago)

counterpoint: god loves all creatures, even the fanged anus worm

― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Monday, 4 December 2023 23:04 (two years ago)

I've bought those for bait before, they're pretty scary

― Andy the Grasshopper, Monday, 4 December 2023 23:23 (two years ago)

Let's see if those embeds:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ad/17/a6/ad17a67682929e201588a804a40d15e8.jpg

Anyway, those are harpy eagle talons, which apparently can be as large as grizzly claws, and these MFs ~fly~.

https://www.audubon.org/news/10-fun-facts-about-harpy-eagle

― Rimbaud: First Blood (Leee), Thursday, 14 December 2023 21:16 (two years ago)

at first I thought the anus worms from slightly upthread had claws

― Formica Jordan (Neanderthal), Thursday, 14 December 2023 22:12 (two years ago)

three weeks pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_epxKOztHH8

1. Some sea slugs can steal (and receive energy from) chloroplasts from algae that they feed on.
2. Some of those same sea slugs can also detach their heads from their bodies and eventually regrow a new body.

― Captain Sisko and Ebert (Leee), Friday, 5 January 2024 21:03 (two years ago)

Have the Spider-tailed horned viper been posted yet?

(caution - bird hunting)

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

― brownie, Thursday, 18 January 2024 17:56 (two years ago)

Was that featured in an Attenborough doc (Planet Earth maybe)? Mind-boggling that that mimicry behavior happens through natural selection!

― Ella Minnow Pea (Leee), Thursday, 18 January 2024 18:02 (two years ago)

@undeadpresident
4 years ago
Just when you thought spiders couldn't get creepier you discover one that turns out to be a snake.

― Kim Kimberly, Thursday, 18 January 2024 18:14 (two years ago)

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/nine-weirdest-penises-animal-kingdom-180976274/

― 龜, Sunday, 28 January 2024 17:42 (two years ago)

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/nine-weirdest-penises-manhattan-180976274

― m0stly clean (Slowsquatch), Sunday, 28 January 2024 23:57 (two years ago)

If you can get past the (IMO very gross) surfeit of limbs, these poorly named tadpole shrimps have some very weird reproductive strategies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ucm-ds2DA58

― Temple of Selune Gomez (Leee), Saturday, 3 February 2024 05:04 (two years ago)

surinam toads...

― m0stly clean (Slowsquatch), Tuesday, 6 February 2024 10:32 (one year ago)

Wonderful

― willem, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 17:05 (one year ago)

three weeks pass...

Caecilians: not just the dick newts of the animal kingdom: their babies eat pays off their mothers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc5Yt7tF910

― Selune Gomez (Leee), Saturday, 2 March 2024 03:28 (one year ago)

*pieces of

― Selune Gomez (Leee), Saturday, 2 March 2024 03:28 (one year ago)

two months pass...

Stupid looking deformed body, i.e. the sunfish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEj8bnx0TB0

― The Mandymoorian (Leee), Thursday, 16 May 2024 03:30 (one year ago)

Crinoids?! WTF!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oM_QvWvoNw!

Crinoids!

― Bottom Cruise (Leee), Thursday, 23 May 2024 02:42 (one year ago)

Sadly not the same as Krynoids
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/tardis/images/f/f8/Seedsofdoom_Krynoid_ravaging_house.jpg

― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Thursday, 23 May 2024 02:50 (one year ago)

three months pass...

Little cotton balls chew leaves to make communal tents:

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

― Oedipal Issues, Adipose Tissues (Leee), Monday, 2 September 2024 04:21 (one year ago)

Singing fish!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j1rZU5opJ8

― Oedipal Issues, Adipose Tissues (Leee), Saturday, 7 September 2024 23:49 (one year ago)

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/09/science/eels-escape-fish-stomach.html

In a study published on Monday in the journal Current Biology, scientists filmed juvenile Japanese eels staging Houdiniesque feats of escape from inside a predatory fish. After being swallowed and deposited into the fish’s stomach, the young eels swam up the hunter’s esophagus and escaped through an opening in its gills, much to the fish’s displeasure.

― Oedipal Issues, Adipose Tissues (Leee), Tuesday, 10 September 2024 22:01 (one year ago)

https://www.wired.com/2013/12/absurd-creature-of-the-week-this-fly-burrows-into-an-ants-brain-then-pops-its-head-off/

Mind controlling ants: not just for fungi!

― Oedipal Issues, Adipose Tissues (Leee), Friday, 13 September 2024 00:28 (one year ago)

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/sep/26/sea-robins-fish-use-legs-to-find-prey

― bored by endless ecstasy (anagram), Thursday, 26 September 2024 15:19 (one year ago)

Whoa @ the video, they look freaky.

And linked from that article: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/sep/18/lizards-use-nostril-bubbles-to-breathe-underwater-and-evade-predators-researchers-find

― Vincent van Gagh (Leee), Thursday, 26 September 2024 19:22 (one year ago)

two weeks pass...

The Law of Urination:

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

― Muol Deng (Leee), Saturday, 12 October 2024 03:42 (one year ago)

one month passes...

Some species of bats have males that lactate and so will actually nurse their young.

― More Cumin Than Cumin (Leee), Monday, 2 December 2024 20:58 (one year ago)

two months pass...

Paper Nautilus, neither made of paper nor a nautilus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEGpg3DTDZw

― Baroque Obama (Leee), Monday, 3 February 2025 23:48 (one year ago)

three months pass...

Orcas figure out how to completely immobilize Great Whites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRdHMG7mQ90

― Baroque Obama (Leee), Wednesday, 28 May 2025 22:42 (eight months ago)

maybe my favorite thread. thx, Leee!

― fight for the right to remain silent (outdoor_miner), Wednesday, 28 May 2025 22:58 (eight months ago)

Thanks! Glad others enjoy the posts!

― Baroque Obama (Leee), Thursday, 29 May 2025 01:01 (eight months ago)

To be a chinstrap penguin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd4GreqBPJI

― Krustacean the Clown (Leee), Tuesday, 10 June 2025 17:46 (seven months ago)

three weeks pass...

If you want to see the only mammal uglier than a Chinese crested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDmJJbn-1-s

― Leeeonora Carrleeengton (Leee), Monday, 7 July 2025 23:32 (six months ago)

two weeks pass...

The only true and perfect monogamy in the animal kingdom belongs to flat worms who literally fuse together into a super organism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktkr76jzJis

― Mogwai Fear Seitan (Leee), Thursday, 24 July 2025 00:38 (six months ago)

one month passes...

Apologies for the reddit link but I just bring the fat innkeeper worn to everyone's attention: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDepthsBelow/comments/13blo8m/fat_innkeeper_worm_urechis_unicinctus_a_species/

Its shape reminds me of something but I can't quite put my, um, finger on it.

― Slow Loris Leachman (Leee), Thursday, 28 August 2025 20:02 (five months ago)

Urechis unicinctus, known as the fat innkeeper worm or penis fish,[3][4] is a species of marine spoon worm in East Asia.

― Kim Kimberly, Thursday, 28 August 2025 20:12 (five months ago)

not exactly 'weird' but I see that the little pupfish in that one cave in Death Valley is now really endangered... recent earthquakes have something to do with it

― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, 28 August 2025 20:36 (five months ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1O5B8I6cXs

Pangolin tongues are as long as their bodies, and are anchored in their abdomens near their kidneys.

― Slow Loris Leachman (Leee), Sunday, 31 August 2025 02:26 (five months ago)

Also they kind of walk around like little armored T rexes.

― Slow Loris Leachman (Leee), Sunday, 31 August 2025 02:27 (five months ago)

Presented without comment, the granulated sea star:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zMg4YY8KY

― Slow Loris Leachman (Leee), Thursday, 11 September 2025 04:22 (four months ago)

How about an ant that lays eggs that hatch into a different species of ants?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-O4_AwWpfI

― Slow Loris Leachman (Leee), Sunday, 14 September 2025 22:49 (four months ago)

four months pass...

Muntjac is really creepy and unsettling, content warning if you don't like weird holes flexing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whrYcNTmLx4

― Major Kirascuro (Leee), Sunday, 1 February 2026 00:24 (four days ago)

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