99 percent of all animal species ever are now extinct
why?
Because mother nature is a complete psychopath
I hate her, and she's made it clear she hates me too
still, it's estimated there are 8.7 million animal species in the world
just to catalogue that many species could take us a thousand years
with so many animals out there, you can expect a fair amount of them to be strange
in fact a lot of them look like real life pokemon
so I thought I'd make a video on some of the strangest known animals
you've probably never heard of them
unless your also strange
which, if you're watching my channel, you probably are
only discovered in 2009
little is known of the poodle moth
found in a remote southern region of Venezuela,
few people have ever seen it
and only one confirmed photo of it can be found online
for obvious reasons it soon became popular on the internet
but with so little information available on the moth
many questioned if it was genuine, or just a dumb hoax
12 years on, we know just as little about them as we did at the time of discovery
however it is now widely believed the poodle moth is real
there is no reason to believe such an animal would be impossible
it even looks a little like the silk moth
a moth domesticated for so many generations it has lost it's ability to fly
the poodle moth was discovered by a scientist from Kyrgyzstan
who ventured deep into the jungle
being high altitude and surrounded by dense plant life, the area is incredibly hard to reach
so for all we know
there may never be another image taken of this strange animal
Just as cute as the poodle moth is the horror frog
a strangely hairy creature, their heads are wider
and muscles larger than most other frogs
but that is not why they have such an unusual name
unique among it's family
horror frogs have a kind of sharp,
retractable claw on their back feet
unlike the claws of a cat, their are actually made of bone
when threatened, the bone in their leg breaks, and pierces their skin to project out
then when the danger is gone, the bone retracts back inside their leg
and the skin heals to cover it
unsurprisingly they have also come to be known as wolverine frogs
as far as we know, horror frogs are the only animal to have this kind of defense mechanism
their claws are effective weapons
so when humans hunt them, long knives are used
locals believe eating the frog can bring fertility
there are other animals believed to serve this purpose
but in this case I'd rather just not be fertile
The strangest animals are almost exclusively underwater
and the further down you go, the stranger you get
on the ocean floor live sea pens
named for their resemblance to feather quills
while they also look like plants
no plant can live at the depths they often live
on first being discovered, they were thought to be a plant-animal hybrid
but today we know they are just animals
but they are still highly unusual
when touched, sea pens emit a bright light, literally glowing in the darkness
it's thought their glow can confuse, or even scare predators
their other survival tactic is to burrow underground
but they too prey on smaller animals
who are then stung to death and eaten
sea pens are one of the only animals that grows by cloning itself
it seems like everything about this animal is bizarre
and still quite little about them is known
what we know is they can live in the sea bed almost anywhere
even in the coldest of polar regions
one of the rarest animals is known as the firework jellyfish
living at extreme depths, almost nothing is known about them
very few encounters occur, and even less are caught on camera
this one is almost a mile below the surface
it's bright colors are all due to light reflecting off it
so without the light it would be almost invisible