Animals you didn’t even know existed

living in Aus’ always finding stuff never heard of…thought i saw an otter last week but google tells me the only otters in Melbourne are at the zoo….what I saw is colloquially named a “water rat” but has rebranded with it first people’s name a Rakali about 30cm long body big tail with white tip that is was using as a rudder

The Fossa was my most recent WTF off the telly. What an amazing looking thing

They’ve got one down in Folly Farm, in Pembrokeshire. It’s an astonishingly muscular animal, to the point of looking scarily alien.

My entry is the blue sea dragon:
Wikipedia

Like that sea dragon, incredible. I had no idea that existed but it actually seems very widespread.

I like a leafy sea dragon too. Saw one diving on the North Shore of Bondi.

amazing looking things

https://oceana.org/sites/default/files/styles/lightbox_full/public/shutterstock_ian_d_m_robertson_leafy_seadragon.jpg

There’s a whole world of weird cats out there, beyond yer common or garden ocelot. This is a jaguarundi:
https://pictures-of-cats.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Jaguarundi.jpg

There’s a whole world of weird cats out there, beyond yer common or garden ocelot

How is do you tittilate an ocelot?

Oscillate it’s tits a lot

Tapir

If you want weird …go small

This is becoming ‘guess the animal’ 😉 ?

I got the Mane Wolf (by using reverse image search). As a result found self watching a fascinating overview of it on that free video channel.

Latest surprise was the Black-Spotted Cuscus.

Imagine most of these creatures are critically endangered. Hurrah for humans. We showed that evolution who was boss.

Today I happened across the Sundas Flying Lemur. In this post truth age its not a Lemur and doesn’t strictly fly

which lead me to…

Buettikofer’s Epauletted Fruit Bat

Buettikofer can keep his **** fruit bat!

Imagine most of these creatures are critically endangered. Hurrah for humans. We showed that evolution who was boss.

I’m not saying the biosphere is rude health, but many of the featured animals are far from critically endangered. Secretary birds, Maned Wolfs, Horseshoe Crabs, those demented bats, those platypus type things, the sea slug floaty thing, jaguarundi etc

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

need something cute to take my mind off that

A little closer to home: the desman. Eyes that don’t work, webbed feet and a snorkel for a nose.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/05/pyrenean-desman-photo-ark-joel-sartore-animals-spd/

Bobbit Worm anyone?

Ah yes, the Bobbit Worm. We were watching some programme about marine creatures, probably Blue World 2, and that turned up. Traumatised my g/f, did that!
Back to pangolins, and possibly the cutest babies ever…

The trade in their scales is utterly abhorrent, they do nothing, collecting human fingernail, toenail and hair clippings, grinding them up and selling them as ground rhino horn or pangolin scales would have as much ‘medical’ effect, it’s all just keratin. 😖

Carpet frogs.

Well I lol’d

And yes to Octonauts. I didn’t realise it was actually factual until watching a wildlife program and my then 3 year old started telling me what things were and what they did.

Dracula Parrot

I saw a good few of these in Borneo, but I never caught sight of a pangolin

Half of these are just extras from the ‘Where’s your head at’ video.

Mantis shrimp, the colourful killer.. became more notorious a few years ago, but still a favourite of mine

Mantis shrimps kill their prey by smashing them with hammer-like appendages known as dactyl clubs.
These move at up to 23 metres per second and accelerate faster than bullets, giving the creature one of the fastest blows in the animal kingdom.

How about the Tardigrade:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade

Nature’s survivor:
Vacuum – fine
-272 deg C – ok
6000 atmospheres pressure – whatever
Ionising radiation – no problem.

A really stupid one… Driving to Winnipeg last year through forest on a dead straight, quiet road there were these birds stood by the road – cranes or egrets I reckoned.

Came over a crest and there was one stood in the middle of the road looking gormless, til I approached at which point it ran off at speed. Turns out the roadrunner is an actual real live animal, which lives in Manitoba (among other places)