:: Grotesque beauties of nature

[Odayga]

hatchet fish + hand fish.

[TASmith]

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the squidworm: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101124...nsbiodiversity

[Lady Medusa]

Not sure if this one has been posted yet.

Its called a Promachoteuthis Sulcus, Its a deep-sea squid, whit human-like teeth instead of a beak


Atolla wyvillei - Its one of the most fascinating jellyfishes. When attached, it will illuminate, attracting a bigger prey to eat its attacker


Barreleye fish

[Carnifex]

reviving this thread to bring you this awesome site:
http://uglyoverload.blogspot.com
incredible stuff for incredulous people. so much wtf at times.
examples:


(sorry for the size)

that's a fucking fish!

[Holland]

what IS that??

that last one actually really grosses me out.

[Carnifex]

i'm guessing some sort of sea-slug.

[Iridyse]

what IS that??

Looks like a geoduck

[Abrodos]

Geoduck, I choose you!

[biglu]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f5e_1295848574

[crossmirage]

These things have the most impressive mouths. Skip to 2:00 or so.

[nauvice]

"Today I discovered that when a deer sheds its velvet, the antlers are bloody and raw looking for a while afterwards. Disgustingly beautiful."

[biglu]

[Ryan_B]

what IS that??

Yep, it's a geoduck ("gooey duck")

They bury deep in the sand so you have to dig deep to get them. You have to be careful when you get them because they can be contaminated by red tide.

I never ate them as a kid because they are kind of tough and don't really taste that great. Small clams are much better.

Another weird thing that people have started eating is salmon eggs. I see jars of them sold as caviar. My dad and I used salmon eggs (roe) as bait when we fished. We would preserve the roe with Borax.

One man's bait is another man's caviar.

[Kuroyue]

Hey guys, I'm looking for a gif of a nightmarish deepsea fish, and I'm not sure if I saw it here or not.

This is one scary fish. When it eats, it opens its jaws and it looks like ANOTHER set of jaws pops out from under, all Predator-like, and extends forward to nab prey.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

[Ryan_B]

Hey guys, I'm looking for a gif of a nightmarish deepsea fish, and I'm not sure if I saw it here or not.

This is one scary fish. When it eats, it opens its jaws and it looks like ANOTHER set of jaws pops out from under, all Predator-like, and extends forward to nab prey.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Goblin shark

[Vermis]

bipedal gorilla

It's great 'n' all, but the 'Amazing Facts! Did You Know...?' thing that wasn't mentioned the media hype is that all species of ape can walk or move bipedally. Not often, but still...




http://www.arkive.org/white-handed-g...xt=Description


http://www.flickr.com/photos/86666094@N00/5092515724


http://www.flickr.com/photos/7303343@N06/3120796749

http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzool...omy_part_i.php

http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzool...orangutans.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipedalism#Primates

[biglu]

not often,

that was kind of the point

[Vermis]

But not unique. But I take your point.

Anyway, you've got to give me something. You already put up the post on amblypygi I wanted to do...

[biglu]

Yeah I just knew them as Cave Whip spiders. Didn't know the correct term for them Vermis thanx.

Originally I became interested after seeing one in Harry Potter.





I'm still not sure if they're considered to be spiders or scorpions though.

[Rivenis]

this thread has been non-stop win from the very beginning. Loved scrolling through these pics.

[Dethklaus]

this thread has been non-stop win from the very beginning. Loved scrolling through these pics.

You can say that again! I'm getting a lot of ideas already.

[Carnifex]

aww look at that adorable chinese water deer, isn't it cute...


who's cute? yes, you are, yes you...

whoa.

(via uglyoverload)

[Vermis]

Yeah I just knew them as Cave Whip spiders. Didn't know the correct term for them Vermis thanx.

IIRC they're known as 'cankles' in Mexico, which sounds a little unfortunate but trips off the eye and tongue a bit easier than 'tailless whipscorpion' or 'amblypygid'.

Originally I became interested after seeing one in Harry Potter.

I used to have a couple myself. Not that size, though.

I'm still not sure if they're considered to be spiders or scorpions though.

Neither. It depends on who or when you ask, but according to wikipedia at least there are eleven living orders of arachnids. Spiders (Araneae) and scorpions (Scorpiones) are only two. Amblypygi is another.

Looks like it's time for my 'look at all these cool weird things' post...

Araneae - Spiders. Two suborders: Mesothelae and Opisthothelae (say that ten times, quickly). The Mesothelae is an old, 'primitive' line, only represented today by the family Liphistiidae in the far east. The liphistiids build trapdoor burrows and look similar to tarantulas, but with abdominal segments. The only living spiders armoured this way.



Opisthothelae is divided into infraorders Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae. Mygalomorphs are stocky, relatively 'primitive' spiders, defined largely by downward pointing fangs. Includes, among others, tarantulas (family Theraphosidae, which contains the world's heaviest, if not largest spider), funnel webs (Hexathelidae), and 'true' trapdoor spiders (Ctenizidae).


Bighairyspiders.com


Americanarachnology.org

Araneomorphs - the common, 'typical' spiders, including the spinners of spiral webs, but a lot of others too, including hunting and jumping spiders. Characterised by fangs crossing in a pincer fashion.


Sciencephoto.com

Americanarachnology.org

http://www.flickr.com/photos/techuser

bioluminate.blogspot.com


Scorpiones. A lot of families to list - The Scorpion Files is a decent site to read up on them and peer at photos.




http://www.flickr.com/photos/choobaine

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bethelszoo

Thelyphonida. The whipscorpions or vinegaroons. So-called because of their ability to spray a vinegar-smelling combination of irritating acid as a defence. Otherwise non-venomous.


Thaibugs.com

Invertcare.com

Schizomida. Shorttailed whipscorpions. Recently broken off from Thelyphonida. Little guys.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/23660854@N07/

Palpigradi. Microwhip scorpions. Even smaller!


Arachnology.be

Amblypygi. Long legged, fast, non-venomous. The pedipalps are vaguely scorpion- or mantis-like claws, and the first pair of legs have developed into very thin, long feelers - aka their 'whips'.


Fobi.web.id

Sciencephoto.com

http://www.flickr.com/groups/chelicera

Solifugae. The infamous camel spider, sun spider, or wind scorpion. Some daft urban legends about these have been doing the internet meme tour, but they're not venomous, dangerous, or especially hungry for human flesh. They are fast and have extremely strong jaws for their size, though.



Bugguide.net

Whatsthatbug.com

Opiliones. Harvestmen or daddy-long-legs. Subject of an urban legend of their own.


www.flickr.com/photos/bramblejungle

Bugguide.net

Pseudoscorpionida. Pseudoscorpions, natch. Tiny, omnipresent, rarely seen pest-controllers. They have venomous claws and hitch rides on insects.


Thewe.cc

Augsburg.edu

Ricinulei. Hooded tickspiders. Small blind predators with a... hood.


Arachnologyatjunction.com

Acari. Mites and ticks. Last but not least. A mind-boggling array of plant parasites, animal parasites, predators and detrivores.


Bugguide.net

lancaster.unl.edu


http://www.flickr.com/photos/lordv/

Lymediseaseaction.org.uk

Apols if any of this stuff has been posted before.

[Vermis]

I was going to post some of this in reply to the Disney - Sexism and Animation topic, but it seemed more appropriate here.

According to cladistics, which is starting (?) to gain popularity over Linnean taxonomy in biology, birds are dinosaurs. I swear that this makes them at least 200% more entertaining to watch. (I'm not a biologist so I'm not sure how widely accepted this is -- for all I know most biologists are totally into it now.)

Birds from the clear-cut 'Class Aves', are now a subgroup of a subgroup of a subgroup of a subgroup of a subgroup of a subgroup of a subgroup of Theropoda - the meat-eating dinosaurs. And there are a few subgroups I missed out. For brevity. The line between what's traditionally a 'bird' or a 'dinosaur' becomes very blurred among some of those. You're more likely to hear palaeontologists speak of 'neornithines', 'avialans' and 'non-avian dinosaurs', although to speak of branches and clades, rather than old, strict divisions.

As for entertainment, these days I have trouble watching jackdaws march round the garden without adding my own mental dubs of screeches and roars. And here's a tangent: intelligent dinosaurs wouldn't look like the old anthrocentric dinosauroid concept from '82:


http://library.thinkquest.org/26615/troodon.htm

They look like this:


www.africangreyparrots.org.uk

And this:


http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/resources/melody_lytle/commonraven.jpg/view.html

Scroll back up a bit, take a fresh look at some of Biglu's video gifs.

Birds are not Dinosaurs

Palaeontologists use a label: BANDits.

Birds didn't exist during the K-T. At least not what we would consider birds.

Vegavis would disagree.

giant, cold-blooded egg layers

Greetings from 1968.

[jakobweiq]

more grotesque please,...

[Benjaminba]

Hydrothermal worm, viewed under an electron microscope.

Sandworm, anyone?


source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_901833.html

[blogmatix]

Hydrothermal worm, viewed under an electron microscope.

Sandworm, anyone?

Looks like Lady Liberty gone bad... ;-)

[jakobweiq]

more info: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/ani...-than-its-legs

[Beeston]

Maybe grotesque, depends on how you look at it. I personally find it very very cool.

[arenhaus]

Maybe grotesque, depends on how you look at it. I personally find it very very cool.

Yeah, that fish is wicked, wicked cool.

Interesting that before this footage was taken, textbooks would show and describe this fish as having a very concave head with telescopic eyes protruding from it. The transparent dome that the eyes are actually enclosed within never survived the journey to the surface. The fish itself was relatively well known, but no one had any idea that it had this "observatory" for a head...