11 Insane Creatures You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped
Nature, like every worker, gets bored around mid-shift. The coffee wears off, she's got lunch sitting in her gut like a rock, the fluorescent lights are buzzing -- her productivity drops. She knows she's not going to be terribly effective anyway, so she starts dicking around and comes up with stuff like ...
The Lumpsucker, Ugliest Fish In The World
Hey look, it's Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!
"Bring me the head of the one they call 'Michael Bay.'"
That's a lumpsucker fish, which is incidentally the perfect name for it. This probable henchman of Ursula from The Little Mermaid looks like a brain with a face primarily because it has no scales. It comes in two fabulous colors -- brownish gray or muddy gray.
Known for its roe, because what part of that doesn't look appetizing?
They hang out in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, and by all reports they're not very good swimmers, they just kind of float around with their mouths open and swallow whatever is stupid enough to swim inside. And, yep, that's it: We've just found our spirit animal.
The Horsehead Grasshopper
It's a damn shame that Pixar already made a movie about insects and they didn't think to include the horsehead grasshopper:
"I fuckin' ... I just love you, man!"
Horsehead grasshoppers are native to the forests of Peru, and their unique look is supposedly jungle camouflage, but we prefer to believe that predators just don't have the heart to eat them.
Or maybe nature just has rules against eating the lovably incompetent comic-relief character.
The Japanese "Honorable Chicken"
It turns out that chickens have a king, and that king is the onagadori:
Beakness in the front, party in the back.
Its name translates to "honorable fowl" in Japanese, and no, it didn't evolve to carry around 12-foot-long Rapunzel tail feathers. That's the result of selective breeding dating back to the 1600s. The tail feathers don't molt, so they just keep growing for the rooster's entire life.
The "honorable" part might be undermined by having its perch right at "shit on heads" level.
According to the oral history of Japan, the style came into fashion when soldiers started putting rooster feathers on their helmets and spears. The longer the better. Farmers who raised animals for this purpose didn't have to pay taxes, so they went nuts, breeding roosters whose tails just got longer and longer and, well, you know what they say: If something's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.
The Fish With Human Lips
Check out this sucker and try to imagine a scenario in which she isn't the sexy new love interest in the next Finding Nemo:
Or not portrayed by Angelina Jolie.
That's the Malawi blue dolphin. Obviously it's not a dolphin at all, but it gets its name from the shape of its face, which can be best described as "luscious."
A popular aquarium fish, the Malawi blue dolphin can grow up to 10 inches and live for 10 years. And there's no better pet for when you're about to go on a date but it's been a while and you need some kissing practice.
"You have a blatant misunderstanding of the saying 'there's plenty of fish in the sea.'"
The Rosy Maple Moth
Quick, what kind of Pokemon is this?
"IT'S FUZZLEHUGS!"
Trick question! That there is a rosy maple moth, native to the forests of North America. It comes in a wide variety of sugary cotton candy colors, commonly yellow, pink, cream, and white, and it lives in maple trees, hence the unimaginative name. And is it weird that we kind of want to lick it? That's weird, isn't it?
We're guessing it tastes like a lost Starburst fished out from couch cushions.
The Firefly Squid
The firefly squid is a species that lives in the waters around Japan, and it's full of special light-producing organs called photophores that make it look like the ocean is being haunted by an army of squid ghosts that can never know the comfort of the grave. Which is almost certainly already the plot of some anime.
You know which kind ...
Occasionally, they get scooped up en masse by Japanese commercial fishing vessels, and when that happens, it turns the whole ship into a spontaneous rave.
And a lot of confusion about which bass to drop.
Interestingly, the firefly squid usually lives too deep under the water to be seen, but they come to the surface to mate. After they've done their reproductive duty, they die off. So when the sea lights up neon blue, what you're actually witnessing is a violent squid orgy with millions of sea creatures frantically fucking among the tangled corpses of their deceased brethren. But it's so pretty.
The aquatic version of when they use the black light in Law & Order: SVU.
The World's Smallest Frog
Introducing the pea frog, one of the world's smallest frogs:
But just big enough to make you pause in terror ever time you get an
unexpected texture while eating a salad for the rest of your life.
Although it was only recently "discovered," scientists have actually known about the pea frog for around a hundred years -- they just always assumed that it was a baby frog of some other species. In actual fact, Kermit's little cousin is an adult frog that grows to a maximum of 12.8 millimeters.
"If you don't put me down, that's going to be the maximum size parts of you grow to."
Despite their size, pea frogs are actually pretty badass -- they breed inside pitcher plants, which are carnivorous plants designed to lure and digest critters just like the pea frog. It's kind of like if an animal evolved to lay its eggs inside a bear trap.
The World's Smallest Snake
If you think snakes are pretty terrifying, spare a thought for the Barbados thread snake, the smallest snake in the world, who struggles to strike fear into the hearts of aphids.
Being mistaken for a shoelace does tend to undermine the "terrifying symbol of evil" vibe.
It's theorized that this is not only the smallest snake but also the smallest possible snake. If a snake got any smaller, it wouldn't be able to feed or reproduce. Most snakes lay up to 100 eggs at a time, but when thread snakes breed, they lay only a single egg, because that's all their tiny bodies can manage to squeeze out. We know it's risking extinction and all, but that's still kind of adorable.
The Angel Of The Sea
Sea angels are some of the most beautiful creatures in the ocean, flitting around delicately with their translucent wings and glowing heavenly orange interiors, not at all looking like a cock viewed through Predator-vision.
All the majestic, natural beauty of a loose condom floating in a gas station sink.
Sea angels are actually slugs. And those orange bits are actually their massive, glowing balls.
They live in the ocean near Japan, and as the sea angel grows to adulthood, its skin turns translucent, revealing an impressive set of orange gonads that fill up most of their body. They're basically just giant testicles shaped like the floating, winged ghost of Ron Jeremy's dong.
Oh, and when feeding, sea angels sprout tentacles from their faces to grab their prey, in case you weren't disturbed enough already.
Can't have a glowing, oceanic nutsack without some good ol' Cthulhu-esque face tentacles.
The Cross-Eyed Planthopper
This little bugger, almost certainly voiced by Tom Arnold, is the cross-eyed planthopper, which lives in the Southwest U.S. and Mexico.
Coincidentally, areas where Tom Arnold is banned by international law.
The planthopper is kind of a low-profile critter, in the sense that not much is known about it beside its goofy appearance. It's not carrying any antibodies that can protect us from deadly diseases. It doesn't have any biologically significant mechanisms that can revolutionize our way of life. There isn't really anything that can be said about it at all besides, "Horr dordle orr horr urrrr!"
The Panda Ant
Panda ants, which live in North America and have been found as far south as Chile, are so named for the man who discovered them, Joaquin Panda, a South American entomologist who first identified the ants while on an expedition to -- nah, that's all bullshit. They look like pandas, obviously!
But with all the cute parts taken out and replaced with mandible-snapping nightmare fuel.
The panda ant is actually a species of wingless wasp, and like all wasps, they are unholy devil-spawn that must be wiped from existence no matter the cost. They're closely related to the red velvet ant, which is also known by the nickname "cow killer," because their sting is allegedly powerful enough to make a cow pass out. So, remember: Never trust cuddly looking things, never trust nature, and actually -- just to be on the safe side -- never trust anything ever again.
Be sure to check out 15 Animals You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped and 9 Insane Animal Scenes You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped.
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