OK, I'm on one of my butterfly chasing things, and have been googling bizarre animals around the world. Then I wondered if a new thread would actually work on 'bizarre animals'.

So here it is. If you know of a bizarre animal, or an animal with a bizarre nature, post it up here. Make sure you give a brief description of what it is and why it's so bizarre.

So, first up. See if you can find anything more bizarre than this.....

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The Triplewart Seadevil
http://www.amonline.net.au/FISHES/fishfacts/images/ccouseiams.jpg

An ugly as butt fish off the Oz/NZ coastline. It is bizarre, because the male is a tenth the size of the female, and lives the whole of it's life permanently attached to the female. That is; it goes off in search of a female, attaches itself to the unknowing female, and lives the rest of it's life like that. It shuts down it's internal organs, and shares the blood stream with the female.

Do you know of anything more bizarre?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/10/photogalleries/bizarre-beasts/images/primary/shark-big.jpg
A coil of teeth caps the lower jaw of a sculpture of a 13-foot (4-meter) whorl-tooth shark, or Helicoprion, a fish genus that lived about 250 million years ago.
(does the animal have to be currently living?)

whorl-tooth shark, or Helicoprion, a fish genus that lived about 250 million years ago.
(does the animal have to be currently living?)Nope, I don't see why we can't include extinct animals, but it's gotta be something that did exist. Otherwise.... I can see it now.... :) .... we'd all be trying to outdo each other with some really bizarre animals. LMAO. :D

Next:

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The blob fish
It resembles a grumpy old bank manager, (and probably smells like one to), Found just off the coast of Oz, and Tassie. The blobfish is made mainly of gelatinous mass, so hardly any muscle at all. It's the most laziest 'fish' as it just floats around eating things. Heck, it's probably more lazy than a sloth.

http://divaboo.info/img/Blobfish.jpg

http://www.oddanimals.com/images/788623107.jpg

Aye Aye:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Ten things you may not know about Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ten_things_you_may_not_know_about_Wikipe dia) •


Jump to: navigation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aye-aye#column-one), search (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aye-aye#searchInput)
<!-- start content --><TABLE class="infobox biota" style="PADDING-RIGHT: 2px; PADDING-LEFT: 2px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 2px; WIDTH: 200px; PADDING-TOP: 2px; TEXT-ALIGN: center"><TBODY><TR style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><TH style="BACKGROUND: pink">Aye-aye</TH></TR><TR style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><TD>http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/Aye-aye.png/230px-Aye-aye.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Aye-aye.png)

</TD></TR><TR style="BACKGROUND: pink; TEXT-ALIGN: center"><TH>Conservation status (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_status)</TH></TR><TR><TD>http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Status_iucn2.3_EN.svg/200px-Status_iucn2.3_EN.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Status_iucn2.3_EN.svg)
Endangered (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_species) <SMALL>(IUCN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_Red_List))</SMALL>
</TD></TR><TR style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><TH style="BACKGROUND: pink">Scientific classification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_classification)</TH></TR><TR style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><TD><TABLE style="BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; MARGIN: 0px auto; TEXT-ALIGN: left" cellPadding=2><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD>Kingdom:</TD><TD>Animalia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal)
</TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD>Phylum:</TD><TD>Chordata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chordata)
</TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD>Class:</TD><TD>Mammalia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammal)
</TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD>Order:</TD><TD>Primates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primate)
</TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD>Suborder:</TD><TD>Strepsirrhini (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strepsirrhini)
</TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD>Infraorder:</TD><TD>Chiromyiformes
<SMALL>Anthony (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthony_%28primatologist%29&action=edit) and Coupin (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Coupin&action=edit), 1931</SMALL></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD>Family:</TD><TD>Daubentoniidae
<SMALL>Gray (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward_Gray), 1863</SMALL></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD>Genus:</TD><TD>Daubentonia
<SMALL>É. Geoffroy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tienne_Geoffroy_Saint-Hilaire), 1795</SMALL></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD>Species:</TD><TD>D. madagascariensis
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR style="BACKGROUND: pink"><TH>Binomial name (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_nomenclature)</TH></TR><TR style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><TD>Daubentonia madagascariensis
<SMALL>(Gmelin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Friedrich_Gmelin), 1788)</SMALL></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
The Aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) is a strepsirrhine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strepsirrhine) native to Madagascar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar) that combines rodent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodent)-like teeth with a long, thin middle finger to fill the same ecological niche as a woodpecker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodpecker). It is the world's largest nocturnal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturnal) primate, and is characterized by its unique method of finding food; it taps on trees to find grubs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grub), then gnaws holes in the wood and inserts its elongated middle finger to pull the grubs out.

Daubentonia is the only genus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genus) in the family (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_%28biology%29) Daubentoniidae and infraorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infraorder) Chiromyiformes. The Aye-aye is the only extant member of the genus (although it is currently an endangered species (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_species)); a second species (Daubentonia robusta) was exterminated over the last few centuries.

Cool! Looks like Dobby. Bizarre way of getting food too.

How about the

Dumbo Octopus

http://divaboo.info/img/Dumbo_Octopus.jpg

It just looks bizarre! It's supposed to be named after Dumbo the flying Elephant.

http://www.oddanimals.com/images/582581000.jpg

Latin: Psuedocyttus maculatus
French: Saint Pierre de fond do Nouvell Zelande

German: Neuseelandischer Tiefsee-Petersfisch

Spanish: Pez de san Pedro

Russian: Solnechnik

Japanese: Omenatodai

<TABLE height=107 cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=2 width=518 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=258 bgColor=#669999 height=32> Description

</TD></TR><TR><TD width="50%" bgColor=#99cccc height=71>There are several varieties of the dory, the most prominent being the John dory. The John dory is also called St. Peter's fish in Europe, because the thumbprint marking on its side is attributed to the legend of the fisherman Simon (later known as St. Peter) grasping the fish tightly to search for a coin hidden in its mouth. Other fish that are called dories include the smooth oreo and black oreo dory, both of which do not actually belong to the dory family but are part of the Oreosomatidae, or oreo family.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Giant Tube Worm (Riftia pachyptila)
They grow to 3 meters. Adult worms don't have any mouth, eyes or stomach, they have a symbiotic relationship with bacteria which convert chemicals from undersea vulcanic jets into something the worm can metabolize. The young worms do have a mouth, and swallow the bacteria, but once that happens their mouth seals shut. Other fish and animals also eat parts of the tube worm to live.

http://www.ocean.udel.edu/deepsea/level-2/creature/tubworm.jpg

One that really shocked me is a genetic variant of the whippet.

As everybody knows, a whippet is like a small greyhound -- slender and bony and very, very fast.

But the breed carries a gene variant which produces a double muscled version that looks downright bizarre, here:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/06/11/us/12dog-600.jpg


This gene occurs in other mammals, and is encouraged in cattle because of all the extra steaks. In the whippet, the dog needs two copies of the gene for the clunky look, but dogs with only one copy of the gene look normal, but are stronger and faster than dogs without.

Weird.

More about this animal by googling "bully whippet" or by going here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/12/science/12dog.html

Ducky

http://www.stephenwong.com/albums/oddanimals/Frogfish_unidentified_03.jpg

frog fish...ugly isn't it! Almost looks like some of my relatives!!!

http://baublog.weimerhohl.de/wp-content/uploads/2006/01/degus.jpg

Degus! I have two in a luxury cage about 10 feet away. They're definetly strange little creatures and socially humorous. They're native to the mountains of chile and resemble some form of chipmunk but are den dwellers that live communally. Its undecided exactly what they are rodent, cavi or rabbit but they resemble none of the above as far as behaviour. With at least 10 documented vocalizations and a complex social behaviour they really resemble nothing else.

D.B. they are actually cute!!!

I don't know how to insert an image so you will have to look it up but it's worth it.

It's an Okapi. I had to do a report on an animal in 3rd grade and this is what i picked from the stack of pictures to choose from. It looks kinda like a zebra but it's related to the giraffe. They live in the forests of Africa. If you wanna see a really cute picture scroll down the Wikipedia page to see a mommy and baby! :p

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k254/radical_christian/worm.jpg

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k254/radical_christian/tapeworm.jpg

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k254/radical_christian/tapeworms-claude.jpg

What is the world's longest parasite?



The world's longest parasite is the tapeworm so the next question is 'What is the world's longest tapeworm?'

The longest tapeworm ever removed from a human came out of Sally Mae Wallace on September 05, 1991.

In all, doctors pulled 37 feet of tapeworm out of Sally Mae Wallace's body through her mouth.

If you find all of this disgusting, be glad you're not a whale as tapeworms in whales can grow up to 120 feet long.

OK, I've seen tapeworm before, but that's pretty disgusting.

Have you seen this animal? You would only see it if you're a deep sea diver.

It's the umbrellamouth gulper, or pelican eel, or Eurypharynx pelecanoides.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/abyss/life/images/ellis223.jpeg

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/abyss/life/images/wudep34.jpeg