Strangest Animal

[JudeB]

What is the strangest animal you've ever seen in your life, both in real life or pictures of? The strangest one that I've seen pictures of is the barreleye fish, shown below.

 

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I live in a country filled with bizarre wildlife from fish that climb trees to turtles that breath through their bumholes while feeding on aquatic plants to mammals that still lay eggs. Some look stranger than others.

 

[Forest Cat]

Not really a strange animal, but they are rare to see. Saw one of these, albino moose.

 

[JudeB]

I live in a country filled with bizarre wildlife from fish that climb trees to turtles that breath through their bumholes while feeding on aquatic plants to mammals that still lay eggs. Some look stranger than others.

That thing looks like a Dilophosaurus!

 

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Not really a strange animal, but they are rare to see. Saw one of these in the deep forest of Värmland. Albino moose.

Back at you with albino kangaroos - both will make a nasty mess of your car.

 

[Forest Cat]

Back at you with albino kangaroos - both will make a nasty mess of your car.

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Aww, that's the most adorable thing I've seen in a while.

 

[Forest Cat]

both will make a nasty mess of your car.

They can drive? Well, that's not really surprising, it's Australia.

 

[RESleight]

What is the strangest animal you've ever seen in your life, both in real life or pictures of? The strangest one that I've seen pictures of is the barreleye fish, shown below.

Ocean biomes and the sea life within have high concentrations of strangeness. It has so often captured both my interest and imagination.

 

[Outdated]

The Thorny Devil. These strange little lizards are quite harmless, they live in deserts and eat ants. Those spikes are soft and flexible and they're not just to prevent birds from eating them. Their skin has patterns of surfaces specifically to attract dew in early mornings and channels between the spikes channel those drops of dew in to the lizard's mouth.

 

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A field full of strange neolithic monuments?

No, they're Magnetic Termite mounds. All of them are on a North/South alignment. Some of our early explorers weren't terribly bright though, the direction of these mounds is decided by the sun and not magnetism. During early morning and late afternoon the sun hits that flat face full on and heats it up on one side, during the middle of the day when the sun is at it's hottest it's only striking those flat surfaces at a steep angle and not turning the mound into an oven.

 

[JudeB]

A field full of strange neolithic monuments?

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No, they're Magnetic Termite mounds. All of them are on a North/South alignment. Some of our early explorers weren't terribly bright though, the direction of these mounds is decided by the sun and not magnetism. During early morning and late afternoon the sun hits that flat face full on and heats it up on one side, during the middle of the day when the sun is at it's hottest it's only striking those flat surfaces at a steep angle and not turning the mound into an oven.

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Sometimes, it feels like nature is better at architecture than humans.

 

[SeeAnemone]

It is the basking shark for me, I know it's not very rare or unheard of but it is one that I find unnerving.

 

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Sometimes, it feels like nature is better at architecture than humans.

It's a little bit eerie walking amongst them, like a giant's grave yard.

It's not just termites that live in those mounds either, they share their home with bull ants. The bull ants provide protection from predators and the termites provide protection from the elements.

 

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The Southern Cassowary:

 

[Lou Laurinen]

The Southern Cassowary:

This video is hilarious, but the audio woke my dog up and made him bark his head off and growl, haha (not joking!)

 

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This video is hilarious, but the audio woke my dog up and made him bark his head off and growl, haha (not joking!)

Fortunately the lady's final comment is muffled under an Aussie/Philipino accent.

 

[SusanLR]

A lot of insects seem strange to me.
Walked out onto the tennis court one day to find this type of "Walking Stick."

Carrying its mate around no less.

 

[Outdated]

A lot of insects seem strange to me.
Walked out onto the tennis court one day to find this type of "Walking Stick."

We have quite a few different species of stick insect here from tiny to huge. They differ from other insects in the way that their two front legs aren't connected to the thorax like with most insects but are instead attached to the back of the head.

I was over a mate's place one night drinking and one of the large green ones walked on to his balcony, for a joke I picked it up and put it on one of the indoor plants in his kitchen. The next morning his wife got up to get her morning cup of coffee and without her glasses on she noticed what she thought was a new shoot sprouting. She put her face up close for a better look and it climbed on to her face. I wasn't very popular for a while.

Some of them are truly huge, and some are just bizarre.