the world is full of intensity in many diverse and wonderful forms
nature is chock full of animals that can run or fly at blazing speeds
others with jaws powerful enough to snap bones or even the ability to withstand
brutally harsh temperatures pressures more but for all the extremes in the world that life can endure
there are just as many forms of life that don't seem to be designed to handle much of anything
number 10 greenland shark greenland sharks seem like they may qualify as a pretty extreme
form of life if you cherry-pick your information to start with they're sharks that's always an
intense lifeform they also may very well be some of the most long-lived creatures in the world with
speculation that they could live for over 500 years so a nearly immortal shark has got to be
pretty extreme right well not so fast which is to say the greenland shark does not live
its life very fast greenland sharks take 150 years to reach sexual maturity which
means their dance card isn't exactly full they grow at a rate of 1 centimeter per year which is
impressive after 400 years but not so impressive for much of the lead up prior to world war ii
they were fished heavily to be used as machine oil it means their numbers haven't had enough
time to build up again thanks to that 150-year maturity period and catching them was likely not
all that hard since they're one of the slowest creatures in the world their cruising speed
at the water is just .76 miles per hour that's actually slower than the current in many places
9. mayfly the immortal jellyfish gets its name from the fact that the animal is able
to essentially reset its own clock and revert to an earlier stage of life and start aging all
over again the potential to live forever barring being eaten by some other animal or a catastrophe
is right there and then on the opposite end of the longevity spectrum is the lowly mayfly an animal
that just seems like a joke of nature like many insects the mayfly exists in several life stages
after the egg hatches it emerges as a nymph and then lives in the water for up to two days until
it reaches maturity this process can take a while but not much happens on the road to adulthood then
it can emerge as a winged adult where it has a staggeringly small period which live its life the
longest a mayfly adult may live is a couple of days but it's just as likely it won't even last
a full day there's so little going on in the life of a mayfly the mature version of the bug doesn't
even have a mouth it won't live long enough to need to eat so why bother instead it exists solely
to mate and then start the cycle over again for another brood of little mayflies who are destined
for the same remarkably short lifespan number 8. sloths most people are familiar with sloths
by now since the internet has been enamored with them for years they're the only animal that was
named one of the seven deadly sins thanks to their extremely slow paced lifestyle sloths live most of
their lives in trees and rarely come to the ground when they do it's not a fast-paced affair at all
and it's generally just a once weekly trip to the ground to go to the bathroom even in the trees
a sloth can travel about 41 yards in a day they exist mostly on a diet of twigs and leaves and it
takes them days to digest a meal thanks to their exceptionally slow metabolism fortunately for them
they spend about 15 hours a day sleeping so they have plenty of time to let a meal
work its way through the sloth does so little in its life that many of them grow a green algae in
their fur this is in addition to the bugs that take up residence in their coarse hair which
can include beetles and cockroaches keep that in mind if you ever want to give one a hug 7.
pen-tailed shrew there are a number of animals in the world that have extremely limited diets
koalas and pandas come to mind but the pen-tailed shrew in malaysia may have the most interestingly
limited diet of any animal in the world they spend most of their time consuming the fermented nectar
of the buds of the bertram palm tree so not only is it just one plant like a koala or a panda it's
the fermented nectar of that one plant and because it's fermented it means the pen-tailed shrew is
forever getting tanked the fermented nectar has an alcoholic concentration of about 3.8 percent
which is remarkably high for naturally occurring alcohol and around the level of some light beers
they spend an average of 138 minutes a night drinking the nectar which is naturally fermented
by yeast present in the buds as a result of their boozy diet the animals have a remarkably high
blood alcohol level all the time despite that they don't actually exhibit signs of inebriation that
means the poor creatures drink like party animals but experience none of the side effects this even
though they're putting themselves through the equivalent effects of 60 times level considered
excessive when it comes to human drinking 6. large hairy armadillo they say cats can sleep around 12
to 16 hours a day which seems exceptionally lazy by human standards but even a cat would
have to raise a sleepy eyebrow the habits of the large hairy armadillo which claims the record
being an animal that does damn near nothing all the time research has shown that the large hairy
armadillo sleeps upwards of 20.4 hours per day this is in lab conditions where the animal doesn't
have to waste time or energy hunting for food so maybe in the wild it's a little more energetic
but it's safe to assume that it's not running marathons out in the wild number 5. nanobes people
are often obsessed with things being the biggest and there's something to be said for that but when
it comes to the smallest nature went all out with the nanos these aren't the smallest forms of life
on earth and whatever you're thinking when you think of small you're going to need to think again
single cell bacteria no not even close a nano has a volume of 0.0009 cubic microns which doesn't
mean much to most of us but it does sound small but how small well at that size it would take
150 of them to fill one e coli cell a single cell that's tiny beyond belief but despite that a nano
is still alive these little things are so miniscule it was actually debate for some years
about whether they existed at all 4. ocean sunfish people have openly claimed that the ocean sunfish
also called the mola molar exists for no reason at all it does nothing and contributes nothing to the
world which is a harsh assessment for any creature most animals are at least useful in the food chain
but the ocean sunfish may really have no actual purpose at least not much of one the fish looks
like a giant face with fins and is relatively huge it's the size of a car and can weigh up to five
thousand pounds you'd think that something that big would have something to offer but it seems
like it doesn't because it lives on a diet of plankton algae with the odd jellyfishing dude
it doesn't have any particular nutrients in its flesh so it's not ideal for eating
it also has a layer of sludgy jelly under its skin to help it float because it has no swim bladder
the organ that allows every other fish to maintain buoyancy because of their awkward shape and size
the fish are not very adept at swimming but they have to keep moving because they'll sink
without a swim bladder sometimes they actually get stuck floating on the surface as a result of the
quirky way they're put together it's been argued that the only reason the fish still exists since
it barely survives naturally is that it breeds prolifically they produce 300 million eggs which
makes it almost impossible not to survive number three cacapo parrots history has proven that some
birds are just not cut out for living fulfilling lives just look at the dodo bird a bird that was
reportedly so dumb we actually called dumb people dodos in their honor but while the dodo has sadly
become extinct the kakapo still lives though it is tragically close to the end as well only about 150
of these curious little animals are still around part of the reason the kakapo isn't doing well is
that it seems to have no advantages in life at all the bird is flightless and has no defense against
predators long ago this wasn't an issue for them in new zealand where the birds originate new
zealand is not a land of predators and the birds were once so common that people complained that
their noises kept them up at night but thanks to dogs and cats and other animals that became
common on the island the cack bow has had a tough go of things the little birds can climb trees
with their strong little legs but that doesn't do much to save them from cats and perhaps they'd be
okay if they could breed in acceptable numbers but that's the other issue the kakapo only breeds when
the rimu fruit comes to bloom that only happens every few years the males have to build a little
bowl in which they'll make a loud mating call to the females but if there's not enough of the
fruit around the females ignore them and another year goes by with no babies combine this with the
fact that they have some oddly high infertility rates and these little birds have a lot working
against them number 2. fainting goats the true definition of not being extreme in the slightest
fainting goats seize up whenever they become startled collapsing in a vulnerable heat for
upwards of 30 seconds that's not a particularly long time but if the reason the goat was startled
has anything to do with predators then they're probably not in a good spot also known as myotonic
goats the fainting response isn't actually a true faint the goat does not lose consciousness at
any point which arguably makes the reaction worse the scientific cause for the reaction is somewhat
complex but essentially what happens is that when some of these goats engage in a very sudden
movement their muscles are not able to relax again after the quick contraction that causes the entire
body to stiffen up and they will often fall over as a result their muscles may relax again in just
a few seconds and it doesn't happen to every goat of the species still it's certainly an example
of perplexing fragility in the animal kingdom possibly the most bizarre aspect of this entire
breed is that humans have actually encouraged this reaction it could arguably be bred out of them
with some effort in the same way horse breeders or dog breeders try to improve their stock
goat breeders actually bred these animals for increased stiffness as a novelty which is a hell
of a thing to say about a living creature 1. omes most people have never seen an almond for good
reason and for those of you who have seen them we can all agree well yuck that these animals exist
at all is testament to the inscrutable nature of well nature a kind of salamander alms live
their lives in the deepest darkest caves where they grow to be about a foot long and can do
absolutely nothing for longer than any other animal in the world and that includes eating
alms can live upwards of a century and during that time they can go for baffling stretches of time
without eating you've likely heard a camel can go without water for 40 days or that a spider can
go weeks without eating it all laughs in the face of these weaker hungrier animals in captivity
these pink fleshy tube-like beasts with legs have managed to survive for over 12 years without
eating a single thing their normal diet when they do eat is tiny cave shrimp if you have one
as a pet you can feed it three per day but since their natural habitat is deep in dark cold caves
with low temperatures and no light whatsoever their metabolism has evolved into a nearly super
villain-like machine of efficiency that requires just about nothing to keep it going for years and
years the trade-off for long life and a diet that keeps them slim and trim is that their life isn't
exactly an adventure because they live their lives in darkness their eyes are vestigial and serve no
purpose they don't ever achieve a mature form like other amphibians and retain their gills for their
entire lives but they can also regenerate lost limbs when injured that last feature is what
makes it nearly impossible to study them normally amphibians are marked by researchers with small
scars or even a cut-off toe it sounds oddly cruel but the alms just repair any damage so researchers
can't guess their numbers in the wild so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did
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