The Strange Japanese Sea Creatures - National Geographic

The Strange Japanese Sea Creatures

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The Worlds Scariest River Creatures or The River Monster

Vampire Piranha

A close relative of the piranha, the payara is often called the “vampire fish” because of its long fangs, which can grow to 6 inches in length. This little-known but frightening-looking fish is found in the Orinoco River in Venezuela.

Goliath Tigerfish

When your name is “Goliath,” you’d better be one humongous, ferocious creature, and the goliath tigerfish definitely lives up to its moniker. A native of the Congo River basin, the Lualaba River, Lake Upemba and Lake Tanganyika in Africa, it’s the largest member of the tigerfish clan, a genus of fierce predators with protruding, daggerlike teeth. The biggest one on record was nearly 5 feet long and weighed 154 pounds, the equivalent of a super-welterweight prizefighter. And it outclasses other African game fish in speed and power.

African lungfish

Not a pretty fish, the African lungfish is a harmless but truly frightening-looking river monster. The largest specimens can reach about 6.6 feet in length. African lungfish are periodically exposed to water with low oxygen content or situations in which their aquatic environment dries up. Their adaptation for dealing with these conditions is an outpocketing of the gut that serves as a lung.

Piraiba Catfish

Jeremy Wade holds a 72-pound, 5-foot-long piraiba catfish. These formidable fish can grow to over 10 feet in length and 600 pounds in weight. This powerful fish can drown a wrestling fisherman by dragging him to the bottom of the river. One story tells of a fisherman diving down to untangle a fishing net and vanishing, only to reappear hours later over halfway down the gullet of a giant piraiba.

Nile Perch

The Nile perch is considered one of the world’s 100 worst invasive species, though Jeremy caught this one in its native habitat.  This species can grow to 6 feet in length and weigh over 500 pounds. This river monster has caused catastrophic declines among native fish populations in areas where it’s been introduced.

Source:Zevs.net

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The World Biggest Bugs on Earth

Belostomatidae

Belostomatidae is a family of insects better known as "giant water bugs" or "toe-biters." Most species in the Belostomatidae family are relatively large (2 cm or more) with some of the largest, such as Lethocerus, exceeding 12 cm, and nearly reaching the dimensions (length and mass) of some of the larger beetles in the world.

All bugs in the Belostomatidae family are fierce predators which stalk, capture and feed on aquatic crustaceans, fish and amphibians. They often lie motionless at the bottom of a body of water, attached to various objects, where they wait for prey to come near. They then strike, injecting a powerful digestive saliva and suck out the liquefied remains. Yum!

Their bite is considered one of the most painful that can be inflicted by any insect. The saliva liquefies muscle tissue. In rare instances, their bite can do permanent damage to humans. So don't get drunk and pass out with your face near one of these guys.

Occasionally when encountered by a larger predator, such as a human, they have been known to "play dead" and emit a fluid from their anus to make them look less appetizing. Giant water bugs are a popular food in Thailand.

Atlas Moth

(Attacus Atlas)

Atlas moths are...

• ...considered to be the largest moths in the world in terms of total wing surface area. Their wingspan is often up to a foot long.
• ...are said to be named after either the Titan of Greek mythology, or their map-like wing patterns.
• ...unsteady fliers and the female does not stray far from the location of her discarded chrysalis.
• ...found in the tropical and subtropical forests of Southeast Asia.

Giant Camel Spider

When American soldiers aren't worrying about insurgents and IEDs, they have to keep an eye out for Giant Camel Spiders. Iraq's Giant Camel Spiders have even been found hiding in sleeping bags. Fortunately, the giant desert camel spiders native to Iraq aren't venomous. But they are FAST. Giant Camel Spiders have been known to run around 10 MPH. Although most Camel Spiders are about the size of a credit card, they have been know to grow larger than 10 inches, especially in the deserts of the Middle East.

The above photo was taken in the desert area outside of Baghdad. The 2 camel spiders were in a fight to the death. The spider on the bottom has his fangs locked on the torso of the spider above.

The image below is of a U.S. solider stationed outside of Kuwait. He was bitten by a Camel Spider in his sleep. The infected wound was so bad doctors couldn't stitch it up. They had to leave it open to drain and heal from the inside out. The bitten soldier now has a scar the size of a penny on his elbow.

Camel Spiders are common in the Middle East, but they can also be found in the southwest U.S. and Mexico. The Mexican's call Camel Spiders matevenados, which translates to"deer killers" in English.

Giant Walking Stick

Many stick insects are easy to care for, and believe it or not make good tropical pets.

Indian stick insects are all female and reproduce by themselves (parthenogenesis) and seem content living without mates or kin. Occasionally part-male part-female individuals are reared in captivity, but never true males.

The stick insects molt and may eat their own shed skin. By the 6th molt, the stick insect will lay eggs. Yum!

Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing

(Ornithoptera alexandrae)

Queen Alexandra's Birdwing (Ornithoptera alexandrae) is the largest butterfly in the world. The species was named by Lord Walter Rothschild in 1907, in honor of Queen Alexandra, wife of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. Female Birdwings can reach a wingspan of about 14 inches, a body length of 3-4 inches and a body mass of up to 1/2 ounce. These are all enormous measurements for a butterfly and actually much more common for small birds.

Goliath Beetle

The Goliath beetles are among the heaviest insects on Earth. They are found in Africa. The heavily armored adults are so large that when flying, they produce a sound akin to a toy helicopter in flight. They are scavengers and eat rotting fruit, vegetables and animal feces off the jungle floor. Jungle poop. It's what's for dinner.

Giant Weta

Weta are extremely large by insect standards. They can weigh more than 70g, making them one of the heaviest documented insects in the known world. The Giant Weta can't even jump because it's so heavy. Giant Weta and are classified in the genus Deinacrida, which is Greek for terrible grasshopper. They are found primarily on small islands off the coast of the main islands, and are examples of island gigantism. Wetas like to hide under rocks or plant debris.

Giant Isopod

The Giant Isopod isn't technically an insect. Believe it or not, it falls under the Crustacean class along with crab, shrimp and lobster. That's right kids, it's aquatic. Like a giant sea roach.

Although rarely found on food menus in most of the world, it's not uncommon in some Eastern Asian countries to find seaside restaurants serving boiled Giant Isopods.

Even though the Giant Isopod is a deep sea dwelling creature, it might look strangely familiar to you. A close cousin of the Giant Isopod is the much smaller terrestrial Woodlouse (3-30 mm). But you might know the Woodlouse by one of its more common nicknames like pill bug or roly-poly. Woodlice are usually found in damp, dark places, rotting logs and typically eat decaying plant material.

Genetically, Woodlice and Giant Isopods have been unchanged for over 160 million years.

Source:wahoha

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The Strangest Animals on Earth

The Strangest Animals on Earth

From giant salamanders the size of grown men, to fish that turn inside out and bladder-infesting sea creatures, the world is full of some truly bizarre (and at times frightening) creatures. Yet they each serve an ecological purpose and these strange animals are fascinating in their own right.

Chinese Giant Salamander

(Images via xinhuanet and ZSL)
Something tells us these giant salamanders were never called for in any witch’s recipe. Seriously, look at that thing! That lives under some people’s porches! The United States is also home to a giant salamander called the Hellbender, and it’s…well, the name fits. However, it is not as endangered as the shockingly strange-looking Chinese cousin. The Chinese giant salamander can grow to be nearly six feet long.

Giant Coconut Crab

(Image via kottke)
This is not shopped. This is not a hoax. That is a giant crab on a garbage can. They’re native to Guam and other Pacific islands. Coconut crabs aren’t endangered, per se, but due to tropical habitat destruction they are at risk. In WWII, American soldiers stationed in the Pacific theater wrote home with tales about entire atolls being covered in the armor-plated giants. These crabs can crack a coconut in one swipe; but they’re generally too slow to be very dangerous to humans. Children pass lazy afternoons by picking the crabs off tree trunks and watching them crash to the ground; it’s reportedly great fun. And kind of messed up.

Angora Rabbit

(Image via purpleslinky)
The nightmare of every new boyfriend, this fluffy creature looks like a science experiment crossing a Sasquatch and a kitten gone wrong. It’s just a rabbit, however. They were exceptionally popular in the 17th and 18th centuries among European nobility as lap pets, and many different hybrids were bred to suit changing tastes of different royalty. The angora rabbit is still popular to this day.

Cantor’s Giant Soft Shelled Turtle

(Image via Sharenator)
The Pelochelys cantorii, or Cantor’s Giant Soft Shelled Turtle, is one of the most unusual looking animals on earth and certainly one of the most odd looking turtles in existence. Yet few people have seen it or know about it. It’s not a sea turtle – the Cantor prefers to inhabit inland, close to streams and wetlands. It grows very large, with adult shells often spanning more than six feet. They are native to Cambodia but are very rare.

Star Nosed Mole

(Image via Purple Slinky)
Pucker up. The star nosed mole is a tenacious creature, able to withstand severe cold and burrow easily through ice to make its home and find food. It lives in Canada and the East Coast of the United States. It favors a high protein diet of clams, snails, small rodents, mollusks and worms. It’s not a very big creature – about the size of a hand. But its 22 nose tentacles are hard to miss. They help the mole find food.

Climbing Fish

(Image via 7is7)
People were shocked to find the fish with “hands” – and now scientists are even more shocked to find a fish that happens to be a skilled rock climber. It would seem the march of evolution is indeed inexorable. Lithogenes wahari is a type of catfish with specialized pelvic fins that act as gripping “hands” to climb rocks, walls and other terrain. The fish is incredibly rare and the most recent sighting occurred after twenty years of research. There are actually a number of so-called walking fish although not all are true fish.

Angler Fish

Images: left, middle, bottom
Some guys just can’t catch a break. The male angler fish is 1/20th the size of the female angler fish. The huge, traumatizingly ugly spiny fish with the glowing “fishing rod” lure you saw in Finding Nemo? That’s the female. The male is that tiny little blob attached to his horrific goddess that you never noticed. He burrows in with his teeth and she “feeds” him ex-utero style until he eventually loses his eyeballs, then internal organs and finally his life. By then, she’s got his sperm so it doesn’t matter. Anglers are deep-sea fish, but that doesn’t mean they’re safe from threat.

Candiru

(Images via wikimedia, damn interesting and eyes on brazil)
Did you hear the one about the Amazonian fish who swam up a penis, took up residence in said penis owner’s bladder, and could not be extracted due to its umbrella-like spines? It ate away at the man until he hemorrhaged. Though evidence of candiru extraction surgeries are mostly secondhand, enough discussion exists in the scientific body of literature to confirm the dreadful possibility. (Legends of penectomy are almost certainly false, however.) The slick, slim, small Candiru frequently lodge themselves in larger fish and animals and are nearly impossible to remove. (By the way, there are actually far more poisonous fish in the world than there are snakes. Just something to think about.) The moral of the story: don’t pee in the Amazon.

Hagfish


(Images via myfoxmaine and NOAA)
The Pacific Ocean Hagfish has a disgusting way of defending itself. When under attack, it oozes a suffocating slime from its many pores that envelops its predator in a fatal mass of fibrous goo. The hagfish, unfortunately, sometimes falls prey to its own defense mechanism, but normally it twists itself into knots to escape the gelatinous goop.

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