The animal kingdom is a big, wide, wonderful world… but sometimes, it's also pretty weird.
It turns out that there's a ton of animals that seem like they might belong in a galaxy far,
far away, instead of our own, but all of these creatures are very real.
Imagine an antelope. Graceful, delicate, pretty... right? Now,
put an elephant's trunk on it, but only about the first quarter.
Now, you've got the Saiga antelope. Seeing one of these in their natural habitat requires a
trip to Kazakhstan, Mongolia, or Russia, and it's a sight that's rapidly disappearing.
Saiga horns are prized for their reputed medicinal qualities in China, and that means these animals
are being widely poached. If that wasn’t enough, a mass die-off in 2015 claimed the
lives of around 200,000 animals, and that has put serious pressure on the species as a whole.
And they've already survived a lot. Scientists say these weird-faced creatures are little changed
from when they swarmed across the steppe in huge numbers during the last Ice Age.
That's also when they became so ridiculously fast: Adults can easily hit speeds up to 50 mph,
a defense mechanism that was necessary for their survival against predatory Ice Age cats.
Unfortunately, it's their Ice Age ancestry that might be part of the problem. They're incredibly
susceptible to a particular kind of bacteria that spreads in the heat, and, as their native habitat
gets hotter, it's entirely possible they're going to continue sliding toward extinction.
Somehow, all the ugly in the bird world got wrapped up in one unsettling species that some
call the Undertaker Bird. The Marabou stork definitely has a "walking dead" sort of vibe,
from heads that look like they've gone way past their expiration date to their tendency to poop
on themselves to keep cool. It's an understatement to say that these are not pleasant-looking birds.
While they might not be winning any beauty pageants, they're still a crucial part of
the African ecosystem, as they're pretty much nature's garbage disposals. They're
often found eating fish from ponds and lakes that have dried up or disappeared,
cleaning up carcasses, and some even become permanent residents at human garbage dumps.
They eat an almost shocking amount,
and have been seen tearing off and swallowing pieces of carcasses weighing up to 2 pounds.
In spite of their icky appearance, they're credited with helping to keep
a handle on decaying material and, in turn, preventing the spread of bacteria and illness.
Not every creature is pretty, but they can still be pretty important.
There's a ton of stories about researchers who have taught an octopus
the whole "tricks for treats'' thing in much the same way dogs or human toddlers can be taught.
That's created all kinds of debate about just how intelligent the members of the
cephalopod family are. While the title of "smartest" is still up for grabs,
“National Geographic” has said that the title of "cutest" goes to the Dumbo octopus.
So-named for its set of ear-like fins, there's around 15 different
species of little Dumbo octopuses. They tend to have stumpy little arms.
and an average size comparable to a pet guinea pig. Dumbos live as far down as
13,000 feet — which makes them the deepest divers of the Octopods.
Since they live at such deep depths, they don't really have any serious predators. Consequently,
they don't have the ink sac that other octopus species sport as a deterrent, and they don't have
a particular breeding season, either. Instead, the male Dumbo octopus hands over what the Ocean
Conservancy describes as "a handy-dandy sperm packet," which the female carries with her until
she's ready to lay her eggs. Those eggs will each hatch a fully-formed little Pokémon — er,
octopus — that's ready and waiting to start living a sweet little deep-sea life.
In the 1790s, a new invention was allowing for the
transmissions of communications over a long distance. That was semaphore,
and it turns out that humans aren't the only species that had this idea.
In 2006, a team from the BBC was filming deep in the rainforest of Panama, when
they came across a little golden frog aptly (if unimaginatively) named the Panamanian golden frog.
Since the frog’s natural habitat was filled with all kinds of noise from rushing streams
and rivers, their little voices tended to get lost in the noise. The answer? Semaphore.
The little frogs were seen waving their arms and legs in regular patterns that
were translated into things like, "You're cute, wanna be my date?" and "Fight me,
bro!" Both males and females have been observed using this semaphore communication,
and according to the Maryland Zoo, they don't even have external ears anymore. No need!
There's some bad news here, though: The BBC team was there just in time to see the frogs in their
native habitat for what might have been one last time. A fungus swept through the population,
leaving scientists scrambling to rescue — and disinfect — some of the frogs to take
back to captivity. The frog population was already threatened by things like
deforestation and pollution, and now it's believed they're extinct in the wild.
Is that a quill pen? There's a lot of really
weird things living in the world's oceans, and one of the weirdest is the aptly-named
sea pen. At a glance, that's exactly what it looks like:
an olde-timey quill pen that someone stuck into the sea floor then forgot about.
This weird thing isn't exactly an animal — it's a bunch of animals, all hanging out together in
a super-neat symbiotic relationship. It forms when a series of polyps attach to each other:
One becomes the "primary polyp" and forms the stem,
while the others attach to create the feathery appearance.
That's not all for show, either, and all of those other polyps develop special skills. Some only
circulate water, some only filter out plankton to feed the entire little colony, and there are
some that are devoted solely to reproduction. The whole colony works together to ensure the
survival of the community, and there's something here that people can absolutely learn from.
The Wildlife Trusts adds that there are different species of sea pens, with different ways of
discouraging marine life that might like to graze on them. Some are phosphorescent,
some are narcotic, and some can hide in the "bulb" that secures them to the sea floor.
Audubon calls the Hoatzin a "genetic mystery," and that pretty much sums it up. Sure, this Amazonian
rainforest-dwelling creature is technically a bird, but it's really just bad at being a bird.
It starts right from birth, because when Hoatzin chicks hatch, they come out equipped with some
distinctly dinosaur-like claws. These claws aren’t just useless, leftover appendages, either:
When predators invade the Hoatzin nests, the chicks can take a nose-dive over the
side and into the rivers below. Not only can they swim to shore,
but they then quite literally claw their way back up their tree after the danger has passed.
They're the only birds that eat nothing but leaves, so it follows that they have a unique
digestive system... which is responsible for the birds' relentless methane burps. Those who have
gotten close to Hoatzins say they smell a bit like cow poop. That's kind of fitting: Their
digestive tracts are similar to cows, and they have a process that very much like chewing cud.
So much of their internal structure is dedicated to digestion that it came at
the cost of their ability to fly, which they can
technically do... just not well. Oh, and that smell? It's why they're called the Stinkbird.
"'S'cuse me."
"Oh, and is that your contribution to society, you gassy ribeyes!"
"Filthy hairball!"
Their appearance has been compared to the 150-million-year-old Archaeopteryx,
and it's thought that they branched off the evolutionary tree around 65 million years ago.
No one else joined them.
Pictures of a super-shiny, metallic-looking horse make the rounds on social media every so often,
and it's easy to scoff. For sure, that's just the kids these days,
feeling it's necessary to Photoshop everything. Isn't it?
Not in this case, at least: Those pictures we're talking about are absolutely real,
and those gorgeous horses with the metallic coats are a breed called the Akhal-Teke.
According to The Livestock Conservancy, the Akhal-Teke comes in a variety of colors,
but it's the gold that's most common, and which shows off that metallic shine the best. It's not
a trick of the camera: the Akhal-Teke has a unique hair structure that acts as a prism, bending and
refracting light that strikes it. The result is a super shiny coat, no matter what the color.
Even not taking their dramatic shine into consideration, they're pretty unique horses.
They're one of the oldest breeds in the world,
and are immediate descendants of the Scythian horses that were around some 3,000 years ago.
They're extraordinarily intelligent, and, in spite of their slender, delicate appearance,
they're hardy enough to travel hundreds of miles across harsh terrain with little food or water.
According to University of Technology Sydney Research Fellow Hollis Taylor, the Australian
lyrebird can mimic any sound it hears. Taylor says that, although lyrebirds are incredibly shy,
researchers have been able to record them making a wide array of mimicking calls.
That's pretty cool, but there's a catch. In spite of what the occasional viral internet
video might try to get you to believe, they're not out in the forest making laser
beam sounds. "But," one might say, "I've seen the video! Go on, explain it then!"
Lyrebird, lasers
Taylor does: The birds in the video were hand-raised in captivity.
They learned sounds from humans around them, a situation that would not occur in the wild.
And there's another bit of weirdness. Lyrebirds — wild and captive — have been recorded making
sounds like the background noises of a steampunk city. They're clicking, whirring, and grinding
noises that sound like something a clockwork bird would make, but that's just their natural calls.
Bubo, to hitting the ground
The lyrebirds' skill has been traced to a uniquely-built syrinx , which is a bird's
version of the voice box. That seems to have something to do with their unique calls.
And they are unique: Lyrebird parents pass their individual songs on to their children, and those
children sing the same unique, familial songs that scientists have heard passed down through decades.
Some animals look like they were made for hugging, and the gerenuk definitely qualifies.
With their giant ears, big eyes, and little tiny faces, the only thing cuter
than grown-up gerenuks are the little ones. It's not clear how many baby gerenuks could
fit in a standard-size pocket, but it's a line of scientific inquiry that should be pursued.
(Not really: Leave wildlife in the wild, kids!)
See them just walking through their native African habitat, and they look like very,
very slender antelope. It's when they start to eat that the weirdness happens, because
according to the African Wildlife Foundation, they don't eat grass or drink water. Instead,
they stand on their rear legs and use their front hooves like hands, reaching up to grab
high branches and pull them down within reach of their long necks. That allows them to "graze"
on tree branches growing as high as eight feet, vastly increasing their access to food.
Still, that's only helped them survive in their natural habitat,
and doesn’t really take into account the hunters that see them as delicious instead of adorable.
According to the University of Michigan, they're listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List.
Someone really should have a chat with whoever named the Sunda Flying Lemur,
because not only is it not a lemur, but it can't even fly.
“I can’t think of at least two things wrong with that title.”
Don't worry, that's definitely not the weirdest thing about it.
This cute little not-lemur is native to the forests of Southeast Asia, and while it can't fly,
it can glide for such long distances that it's easy to see how someone could make a mistake.
Technically, this little animal is something called a colugo,
which is a species characterized by their gliding ability,
as well as teeth they can use as a comb to keep parasites out of their fur.
They're also proof that nature never runs out of surprises. In 2017, scientists hanging out
in the Sunda Flying Lemur's home turf thought they were recording ultrasonic bat calls,
when they realized the noises they were picking up weren't from the bats at all.
They had made the first recordings of the complete adorable little gliders' ultrasound
chatter. While it's not clear what they were talking about, researchers suspect that the
nearby group of seven flying lemurs were using the calls to talk about the human intruders.
It kind of makes you wonder who else is talking about us behind our backs, doesn't it?
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