• With an estimated 9 million species on the planet there’s plenty of variety to
choose from.
But which ones really stand out?
Would you believe these were real if you saw them?
Here’s the top 15 weird animals you won’t believe exist.
15 – Ocean Sunfish • These are the largest bony fish that exist
and they can weigh almost a tonne.
They look like floating ironing boards and are so big that they can’t really control
their motion.
So, they are just pushed by the current, grazing on whatever jellyfish and small creatures
are propelled carried along with them.
• They are seen as an easy target for sharks and the big aquatic mammals like sealions
and killer whales.
• Without any real defences, they have evolved a very simple trick to survive; they just
lay an astonishing number of eggs, 3 million at a time, the highest volume of any vertebrate.
14 - Velella velella • This is a kind of cnidarian, which includes
corals and jellyfish.
They have a soft blue base and they float on the sea surface.
Like the sunfish, they don’t have much control over their motion but these guys have a small
triangular sail to catch the wind.
• This can result in them being blown ashore though, and places like California have seen
kilometres of beach covered in stranded velella velella, like an alien massacre.
• To make them that extra bit weirder, if you pick one up, you’re actually holding
a mini colony that’s working together like one complete organism.
13 – Glowing Cats • Dr Eric Poeschla led a research project
into protecting cats from the feline form of AIDS.
They took a gene from the rhesus macaque, known to produce a protein that resists many
animal Aids viruses, and transferred it to the cats’ eggs.
• But, to make it easier to mark the cells and find them under a microscope, they also
used a fluorescent protein from jellyfish, leading to glow in the dark cats.
12 – Issus Leaf hopper • This tiny bug has an incredibly powerful
jump and it can accelerate with a force of over 400g.
To give you some perspective, a human body can only take about 20g
• In order to control this massive force, they’ve had to evolve one of the most astonishing
things to occur in nature; organic cogs.
Their legs join together like cogwheels so that each jump is exactly synchronised.
Without this, any tiny delay between each leg would have them bouncing around like a
kitten in a Ferrari; all that power with no control.
11 – Axolotl • Almost all animals change to become adults;
caterpillars become butterflies, tadpoles become frogs and humans get the spotty, moody
joy of puberty.
But the axolotl is one of the very few creature without this metamorphosis.
This permeant youth is called neotony.
• Neotony helps with their almost supernatural ability to regenerate.
They can grow back legs, parts of their brain, even their spine.
10 - Cantor's giant softshell turtle • If you came across one of these guys by
the side of the road, you’d assume he’d had a meeting with a truck tire.
But they don’t need the heavy protection of their brother turtles as they spend almost
all their time, buried and motionless in the sand.
• They ambush passing crustaceans and fish by shooting out their head as fast as a cobra,
with a bite that can crush bone.
9 - Giraffe weevil • It’s pretty obvious where these guys
get their name from, especially the males, who have a neck double or triple that of the
female.
• Unlike a giraffe’s neck, which helps them feed from the softer leaves at the top
of the tree, the weevils only use theirs for nest building and a good, old fashioned fight.
8 – Oilbird • These South American birds live in cave
and are nocturnal.
They are one of the few birds to echolocate, just like how bats do.
But rather than hunting insects, they diet on fruit.
• They get their name because people used to catch their fat chicks and boil them for
oil.
• Oilbirds are also one of the most evolutionary established birds since it’s been distinct
for 80 million years.
7 - - Golden Tortoise Beetle • These insects’ shells contain nano-grooves,
that are typically filled with a light red liquid that gives them their gold shine.
When this liquid is drained, the lower, darker red layers become visible so, when you watch
them, they turn from gold to red.
This kind of colour changing is very rare, especially among insects.
The gold shine makes them hard to spot and the red probably mimics ladybugs, that birds
don’t eat.
• They turn red when they are stressed and during sexual arousal, so, pretty much just
like the rest of us really.
6 – Jaglions • This large cat is a hybrid animal, where
two different species mate and create a cross breed.
Cats are probably the most common group where this occurs since there are many different
mixes like Ligers, Tigons, and Savannahs, which are a mix of house cat and African Serval.
• The Jaglion can end up with jaguar’s spots or even a mix of spots and the black
panther colouring • These mixes are not just from zoos, they
used to occur in nature too, when populations were higher.
5 – Grolar Bear • Another strange cross breed is the Grizzly
and Polar bear mix.
They normally have a cream head and back, and darken towards the legs, like they’ve
just got dirty while jogging.
• In Canada and Alaska, their territories can overlap and so these bear liaisons occur
from time to time.
• Polar bears are being forced south by the melting icecaps so this kind of cross
breeding may become fairly normal.
4 – Scarlet Jellyfish • These jellyfish may have unlocked the
secret to immortality.
As we saw with the axolotl, the secret to regeneration is the childhood stage.
• So, if a scarlet jellyfish gets injured or just overdoes it at the weekend, they can
revert to a childlike state, called a polyp, and just grow everything back.
• Within 2 months they are back to being a full jelly adult again.
3 – Cape Rain Frog • These fat little frogs are native to South
Africa.
And if you think they look a bit chubby to swim around, you’re right, they actually
drown in water.
They prefer to live burrowed in the ground and they come out just before the rain begins.
• They puff up when under threat and even let out a pig-like squeal.
2 – Hooded Seal • At first glance, these seals look like
pretty unremarkable seals; fat and furry, just like you’d expect.
• But when it comes to mating season, they have evolved one of the strangest lures in
the mammal kingdom.
The males puff out huge skin sacks on their heads, creating a pink balloon.
This is used to threaten off smaller males and entice the ladies.
• So, fellas, you know what your new Tinder profile needs to be.
1 - Babirusa • Also known as the deer-pig, babirusas
have to take their dental care very seriously.
If you don’t brush your teeth, you’ll get cavities.
But if a babirusa doesn’t grind down its canines they can eventually curve round and
pierce its own skull.
• Both the upper and lower jaw grow these bent tusks, with the top ones used as protection
and the bottom as a way to attack.