Yes, these are real.

[Lady Medusa]

Oh my god Tiny Bird, Those are so cute

Contributing to the cuteness
Bush Viper


Rose Maple Moth

[Zenith_]

It's a mousy-kangaroo!!!

.....or, you know, some kind of pokemon...

[Angel Intheuk]

/\ That is just the cutest thing

My boyfriend collected Praying Mantises for a while, I wasn't bothered about them before but handling them made me appreciate their awesomeness. The babies are just so cute, some of them can jump so fast from finger to finger it looks like they're transporting. But the number of people I've talked to about them and they've instantly shuddered and said they'd squash one if it came near them was a bit sad...










Also because I'm obsessed atm..Bearded dragons (I'm getting one in a week or so)

[vineris]

Ha ha! I love the picture with the hand and the little black mantises. They're like little Zerg soldiers running off to invade the Protoss base by the elbow.

[TinyBird]

It's a mousy-kangaroo!!!
.....or, you know, some kind of pokemon...

No... it's an ED-209!




EDIT: Also, have some Disco Fur Weasel (there's actual video about 40 seconds in)

[bish0p2004]

Cute and cuddly, huh... :-)

Pandas are so misunderstood...he just wanted the man's jacket.

[Dracontes]

Angel Intheuk: I was like that for some time growing up. The first time I was presented with a mantis about 6 years of age I just freaked out.
Perhaps it was pertinent documentaries that now and then aired and reading on the animals that conquered most of the fear. Praying mantises proper still get me a bit jumpy when handling them but I love Empusa nymphs.

Now for some salticid spider cute:



bish0p2004: they do eat carrion, y'know, and on occasion chow down on a hapless rodent. The panda felt a bit peckish and just wanted to have a taste In all seriousness, I can't understand why people get closer than they should be with animals that are strong enough to injure them seriously.

[Zenith_]

No... it's an ED-209!

Jerboas just went from being tiny jumping furballs to gun-wielding robots of doom in my head.

On another note, I just stumbled across these guys today. Giant Isopods. Sometimes called Giant Marine Woodlice.

Ya gotta love deep sea creatures.

[Velocity Kendall]

I love mantices theyre amazing.

[JeffX99]

speaking of monsterously cute, check out these beautiful freaks.
theyre limbless amphibian worm frog things called Caecilians.
they live in dirt and eat worms. thats the life!

Great VK...some new creature I wish was big enough to ride. And then I could lead all the Fremen tribes to glory. Obviously I should have had a pony as a kid.

[Psychotime]

We should just rename this as the Animal Appreciation Thread.

[pixel cheetah]

We should just rename this as the Animal Appreciation Thread.

That would be misleading, it would also kill the joke.

[TinyBird]

Now this here's ready made Pokemon material! Lowland Streaked Tenrec:

[blogmatix]

Everybody's favourite is the naked molerat...

[OldJake666]

People can't help phobias.

Somebody has never heard of exposure therapy or Systematic desensitization and other psychological treatments to help patients overcome phobias.

[Stuart DeViva]

Hey, where do all of you guys get these beautiful photos?

[JFierce]

Somebody has never heard of exposure therapy or Systematic desensitization and other psychological treatments to help patients overcome phobias.

I guess bad wording with that sentence.

Yes, you can cure one. But that costs money and an actual drive to want to face it. Which if it's not debilitating in the everyday life I know few people who would want to pay someone to face that fear.


If your forced into an environment it helps solve it naturally but doesn't always get rid of it. I used to have a terrifying fear of wasps and bees. I couldn't even be in the same room as one. I was in a room with a skylight out of reach where there was a tiny wasp there. I couldn't do anything. Every 5 seconds I'd hear it buzz and I'd be peeking at it in my peripherals. It's not rational but I was afraid of that mostly harmless bug, so much I couldn't even get rid of it. (Though I've had bees sting me before when I was just sitting at my desk doing nothing, what are the chances). It got better the more I had to deal with them at least but I still can't really be around them but I'll at least try to get it out a window or if I can't I squish em =/

The same as someone who's afraid of a mouse would scream "Kill it kill it" even though that mouse won't do anything to them. It's a phobia. Unless someones in an environment where they're constantly introduced to something or pay someone they can't help having that fear. It's still irrational.

[aerefly]

so cute

[Stuart DeViva]

Nope. Not cute. I kill them. I do not like them at all.

[Psychotime]

Cockroach? Nah.

The giant weta? Oh yes.




This one's also endangered, by the way.

[blogmatix]

Cockroach? Nah.
The giant weta? Oh yes.
This one's also endangered, by the way.

Similar to the Parktown prawn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parktown_prawn) and indeed in the same family of Orthoptera. Our prawns ain't quite as big though! But very beautiful insects, a bit like arthropod dinosaurs. :-)

[crossmirage]

You guys wouldn't know cute if it ate your face.

[TinyBird]

Somebody has never heard of exposure therapy or Systematic desensitization and other psychological treatments to help patients overcome phobias.

I was "lucky" to get a school intern job at the local natural history museum. For three weeks I had to handle dead spider specimens daily for several hours (changed new name tags for them) and every time the dead spider almost got pulled out from the tube I started to hyperventilate a totally froze up
But you know, after that my arachnophobia problem had decreased quite a bit.

[JFierce]

Everyone always picks the cute ones.
But me and my friend play this little game where randomly on Facebook out of nowhere we'll disguise a link in a status update and he'll post ridiculous hornets or bees that freak me out and I post spiders that freak him out. (Though searching through scary spiders on google images still makes my skin crawl .... )

Still doesn't make me not want to burn something like this with fire if it comes anywhere near me.




I'm sorry but you could never desensitize me to not be affected by a ridiculously large spider.
Even if I was in contact with it a lot I would be in pure terror every time it touched me.

[Raoul Duke]

Everybody's favourite is the naked molerat...

I thought these things only existed in fallout 3

I think I put them into extinction.

[Angel Intheuk]

/\ Lol!

[gjpetch]

Still doesn't make me not want to burn something like this with fire if it comes anywhere near me.
I'm sorry but you could never desensitize me to not be affected by a ridiculously large spider.
Even if I was in contact with it a lot I would be in pure terror every time it touched me.

I'd argue that "I find it scary" is not an adequate justification for killing a living creature.

[blogmatix]

I'm sorry but you could never desensitize me to not be affected by a ridiculously large spider.
Even if I was in contact with it a lot I would be in pure terror every time it touched me.

What you need is a friendly solifugid. It can fuck up any spider 6-0.

[Velocity Kendall]

camel spiders look badass but they occupy the same niche as like mice or something. i love the sense whiskers all over the front legs.

naked mole rats are the only eusocial mammals, ie they live in hives. creepy. cute.

[Velocity Kendall]

ill kill or at least do my best to evade anything thats trying to kill me, but i wont feel good about killing really. i shot a pigeon with an air gun once when i was a kid and it fell down bleeding and flapping about and i picked it up and all this hot warm blood was coming out of its back and it was going spastic so i had to cock the gun again and shoot it in the head but then its eye and a lot more blood came out and it still didnt die so i had to cock the gun and shoot it again and finally it stopped moving and i was left with the broken remains of what earlier had been a harmless beautiful living thing leaking piss-warm blood all over my hands and jeans and there and then i knew id never take pleasure in killing ever again.
it was a lot like that episode of the simpsons where bart does the exact same thing round nelsons house, only without the plague of lizards.

what ticks me off is when i see on the news some fucking fat american hunt prick has shot the largest bear ever, or the largest wild boar ever. And its the size of a car and was clearly one of natures most majestic sights, and has now been transofrmed by some groteque fat Bobby Bachala into a big dead pile of rotting meat.
its like posing next to the mona lisa after youve smeared your shit all over it. it fucking baffles and enrages me how the first instinct when people find some huge old amazing animal is immediately terminate its life and pose next to its cooling corpse. its the exact opposite of artistic creation.
and no i dont like taxidermically preserved game animals, and no i dont think pictures of them will convince me othewise. not even really cute ones of foxes or scampering meerkats somehow caught in amazingly lifelike poses. if you like hunting, for the satisfaction it brings you to kill another living thing, then you can suck my balls, basically.

mind you you probably can go too far the other way. i mean, i killed a wasp nest in the eaves of my house last summer because every night at about 4:27am theyd all come out and start swarming all over the window and trying to get in round the rubber seal, and im allergic to the fuckers and swell up like a balloon if ive been foolish enought o smoke a j and not shut the window, so if i get stung by the 40 or 50 wasps that are trying to get in at 4.27 ill die. but i felt really bad. killing the whole nest is killing the animal. and that bloodline winds its way back and back, through last year and victorian times and biblical times right back to the first animals on land, and then back to the cambrian life explosion, and back so some tidal swamp on the rocky shore of some barren supercontinent billions of years ago. and i just ended it. and thats a heavy responsibility.
then im like fuck that no it isnt theyre gross bugs fuck em. you just got darwinated bitches!