The world is just awesome and also strange and sometimes deeply disturbing on a psychological level. For every beautiful butterfly out there, there’s a flesh eating deer. For every cute little bear cub, there’s the Dracula Ant. And nowhere during the “March of the Penguins” did they mention that, on occasion, a penguin will kidnap another penguin couple’s chick. Yes, penguin-napping. It happens.
So on that note, here’s some more interesting stuff about those beautiful, exotic, and sometimes very weird creatures with whom we share our planet. Enjoy!
8. Tardigrades: Tougher than Chuck Norris.
Commonly called “water bears”, tartigrades are microscopic water-dwelling organisms with segmented bodies and eight legs. The name “water bear” comes from the way that they walk, which is reminiscent of a bear.
These hardy little critters can survive almost any place, as long as there is moisture: hot springs, the peaks of the Himalayas, under layers of solid ice, stone walls, roofs, ocean sediment, and toxic bogs.
But, the most amazing things about Tardigrades is that they can go into a state of reversable suspended animation where they become like tiny little superheroes. While in this suspended state, Tardigrades can survive bursts of heat up to 151ºC and cold as low as –272 °C (a single degree above absolute zero) They can withstand super-low pressure as well as super-high pressure (up to 1200 times atmospheric pressure) and can survive a completely moisture-free state for up to ten years. They can also withstand boiling water and being submerged in pure alcohol, and. They’re also impervious to radiation. Pretty amazing, really. But not as strange, per se, as…
7. Female Trout Who Fake Orgasms
Swedish scientists have found that female brown trout fake orgasms in about half of their spawnings.
During a normal spawning, the female digs a gravel pit for the eggs. When she prepares to mate, she crouches down to protect the nest, opens her mouth and starts to quiver intensely. The male then swims alongside the female, assumes the same position,opens his mouth and starts to quiver as well. After a few seconds, the female releases her eggs and the male fertilizes them. But some researchers found that sometimes the female fakes it and doesn’t release her eggs when the male releases his sperm.
Why? Well, some say that the fish may perform this ruse with a less desirable male in order to ‘make it go away’ so it can then get it on with a more desirable trout.
6. The Platypus
Despite being 12 animals rolled up into one, the platypus also has the honor of being one of the only mammals in the world with venom and is THE ONLY mammal in the world that delivers it’s venom in a way other than a bite.
The male platypus has a venomous spur on its hind legs, which can incapacitate an adult human and causes excruciating pain. The venom is unlike any other venom in the animal world, using defensin-like proteins, which are normally reserved for innate immune functions like killing bacteria.
On a similarly freaky note, the platypus also lays eggs AND nurses it’s young with milk, although it doesn’t have any nipples. It secretes the milk (and immune-boosting chemicals) through patches on it’s skin.
Just like Mom used to.
5. The Argentine Lake Duck
Also called the Argentine Blue-bill and the Argentine Ruddy duck, this species of fowl is a small, stiff-tailed duck native to South America. Clumsy on land since their legs are set unusually far back, they spend most of their time in water where they feed by diving, and very rarely fly.
Which is probably difficult anyway, because these ducks have, in relation to their body size, the longest penis of all vertebrates on Earth. The penis, which is coiled up in its flaccid state and has a bristled tip, can reach about the same length as the animal itself when fully erect (about 42cm), although, despite what the male ducks will have you believe, it is more commonly about half the bird’s length (about 20cm).
Most male birds do not have a penis at all, but male ducks have a long corkscrew penis and female ducks have a long corkscrew vagina (it corkscrews in the opposite direction).
It is theorized that the remarkable size of the Argentine Lake Duck’s spiny penis with its bristled tip may have evolved in response to competitive pressure in these highly promiscuous birds, removing sperm from previous matings in the manner of a bottle brush.
4. The Wholphin
A hybrid known to occur in the wild, a wholphin is what you get when a false killer whale and a bottlenose dolphin love each other very very much. A false killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens) looks just like an orca (killer whale) but actually is a member of the dolphin family, hence how they can breed.
A wholphin almost exactly averages the characteristics of it’s two parent species. Example: Bottle-nose dolphins have 88 teeth, false killer whales have 44 teeth, and the wholphin splits the difference with 66 teeth.
3. Giant Salamanders
Asian giant salamanders are aquatic amphibians found in streams and ponds in China, Japan, and (occasionally) in the Eastern United States. Japanese salamanders can reach up to 4 1/2 feet and have been known to live over 50 years! Chinese giant salamanders can get as big as 6 feet in length, and eat crustaceans, fish, and insects, worms and mice.
Giant salamanders are the largest species of amphibian currently living on the planet, yet perhaps not for very long. The giant salamander’s numbers are dwindling due to the fact that it’s flesh is considered a delicacy in many parts of Asia. It is currently listed as a ‘Critically Endangered Species’, according to the IUCN Red List.
2. Albino Alligators
“These gators are a genetic mutation of the American alligator,” says Kathy Landry, a zookeeper at the New Orleans’ Audubon Zoo. Buried in the cells of every newborn animal is a unique set of genes. The blueprint shapes how the animal will develop and grow, what its eyes, scales, fur, or feathers will be like. But sometimes the instructions have defects.
The gators inherited a defective gene that produces too little melanin, the pigment that lends skin its hue. Their parents may have had normal greenish skin and eyes (no one knows, since the gators were found in the wild). But if an animal offspring is albino, then both parents carried the gene for that trait.
1. Carnivorous Red Deer
Red deer on the Scottish island of Rum eat the heads and legs of live seabird chicks in order to get the minerals they need to grow their antlers.
Situated 16 miles off the west coast of northern Scotland, the island of Rum has one of the largest colonies of Manx shearwaters (Puffins). In late August, the birds hatch and begin to venture out from their hillside burrows (birds burrow?). Unable to fly, they make a perfect snack for carnivores, among them that lovely picture of doe-eyed innocence, the red deer.
For many years the appearance of decapitated shearwater chicks baffled bird watchers. The bird were mostly intact, though, missing only their heads and leg bones.
Generally, vegetation will provide a deer with enough minerals and nutrients that it needs, but the vegetation on the island of Rum has a low calcium content. The calcium supplement that the deer get from the bird bones aids in the growing of strong antlers, which are vital for a deers mating rituals.
Now, I know that this all makes sense and everything, but I don’t think I’m alone when I say that I don’t think I’ll ever get the image of Bambi ripping apart a dove out of my head.
Tags: nature, freaky, disturbing, animals, carnivorous deer, albino alligators, platypus, wholphin, giant salamanders, argentine duck penis, fake orgasm trout, tardigrades, chuck norris, amazing
Tags: albino alligators, amazing, animals, argentine duck penis, carnivorous deer, chuck norris, disturbing, fake orgasm trout, freaky, giant salamanders, nature, platypus, tardigrades, wholphin
The albino alligator looks like a lawn ornament that packs an unexpected surprise.
Bengo
LilNyet.com
It’s about time deer figured out that meat is good. Cheers for them! This may lead to a new wave of meat eating herbivores. Jeepers! A walk in the woods is no longer safe. Groundhogs and chipmunks are soon to be nibbling at our ankles.
The deer aren’t actually carnivorous. They just eat the bones. The meat makes them sick.
tj – You know, I’ve always thought that it would be quite terrifying if all of the herbivores out there turned carnivore for a while. My favorite example is hummingbirds. They’d be like darts.
Ikkonoishi – Eating bones doesn’t make you a carnivore? I’m afraid I must disagree. Although if I had called them “meat-eating” deer, you would have a valid point.