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Amazing animals thread

Waterbears!

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Tardigrades (as they're properly called) are less than a millimetre long, live everywhere (including in hot springs, on top of the Himalayas, under 5 m layers of solid ice and on ocean floors) and can survive almost anything - they are able to go freeze themselves into dehydrated state for years, and whilst in this state can survive temperatures of -272.8 °C for days, being placed in boiling water for several minutes, over a thousand times the fatal dosage of radiation for a human, being in a vacuum or pressures several times atmospheric pressure and various chemicals.

Which is bloody amazing if you ask me!
 
Bats are pretty cool. The ways they have evolved echolocation and then constantly re-evolved to refine it and overcome the associated problems is amazing. I read about it in one of Richard Dawkins' books, but I forget which (The Blind Watchmaker? Or Climbing Mount Improbable?)
 
rubbershoes said:
a sponge

sponge.jpg


Ok so it's not technically an animal but its party piece makes it pretty damn clever, in my eyes.

You can push a sponge through a sieve and it will reconstitute itself afterwards. :cool: Lets see any of your axolotls or bearded vultures do that.

and there's more :eek:

push two sponges through a sieve and they will sort themselves out afterwards and both have all their own bits

admittedly these amazing feats are all sieve related but you can never too much sieve action , canyou?
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All true except that sponges are indeed animals.

I kept axolotls as akid - even got one to metamorphose into the adult form. The larval stage are actually very boring - they just hang still in the water 99% of the time.

As for amazing creatures how about the ceratoid angler fish - when the male finds a female he just latches on, they fuse together and all his organs shrivel, except the gonads which grow - he ends up as an entirely parasitic scrotum...ready to fertilise her eggs whenever she wants.
 
Wow!

Yeah - that fishthatlivesinthefemaleswanny thing... I heard about it but didn't know its name

Thank you.

Thank you.

<scribbles down ultimate geeks party anecdote>
 
MarkMark said:
Wow!

Yeah - that fishthatlivesinthefemaleswanny thing... I heard about it but didn't know its name

Thank you.

Thank you.

<scribbles down ultimate geeks party anecdote>
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It doesn't live inside her - it just clamps onto her skin wherever it finds her. See the pic in the link? Those two things beneath her are males.
 
Snorkelboy said:
It doesn't live inside her - it just clamps onto her skin wherever it finds her. See the pic in the link? Those two things beneath her are males.
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Yes, but either way it's still a bit unique as far as mother nature goes isn't it?

Your entire role in life: a bunch of bollox
 
MarkMark said:
Fossas, never heard of those before - v. cool! :cool:

We've got two chinchillas at the MarkMarks.

chinchilla-0015.jpg


They are fistbitingly cute and originate from the Andes mountain range in south america. Due to hunting, none live there anymore and all pet-chins alive today are decended from the same 11 that were rescued from extiction in 1918.
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i had a chinchilla :) :) i loved him so much, they are lovely bizarre creatures od cuteness and quickness. Then it got trodden on :( Not by me.
 
The Okapi:

okapi.jpg


One of the last large mammals to be discovered (by people who count at least), in 1901. It's the black sheep of the giraffe family, being the only member that isn't recognisably a giraffe.
 
spiralx said:
Waterbears!

t03.jpg


t04.jpg


t01.jpg


Tardigrades (as they're properly called) are less than a millimetre long, live everywhere (including in hot springs, on top of the Himalayas, under 5 m layers of solid ice and on ocean floors) and can survive almost anything - they are able to go freeze themselves into dehydrated state for years, and whilst in this state can survive temperatures of -272.8 °C for days, being placed in boiling water for several minutes, over a thousand times the fatal dosage of radiation for a human, being in a vacuum or pressures several times atmospheric pressure and various chemicals.

Which is bloody amazing if you ask me!
Click to expand...


And I thought only cockroaches could withstand anything!
Jo's appartment will give you a new look on cockroaches but it isn't for the squeamish about bugs
 
Snorkelboy said:
All true except that sponges are indeed animals.

I kept axolotls as akid - even got one to metamorphose into the adult form. The larval stage are actually very boring - they just hang still in the water 99% of the time.

As for amazing creatures how about the ceratoid angler fish - when the male finds a female he just latches on, they fuse together and all his organs shrivel, except the gonads which grow - he ends up as an entirely parasitic scrotum...ready to fertilise her eggs whenever she wants.
Click to expand...


My boyfriend makes sponges (synthetic) for bathing and cleaning purpose. I couldn't imagine using a real (used to be alive) animal on my body....
 
cyberfairy said:
i had a chinchilla :) :) i loved him so much, they are lovely bizarre creatures od cuteness and quickness. Then it got trodden on :( Not by me.
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Chinchillas are beautiful, but the mistake I made was to buy a male, then a year and a half later, buy a female. He had been so lonely, that, well, nature took it's course, and before I knew it, I had about 15 of them. I had to separate males from females to stop the (infestation) from continuing...It's really easy to sex them as well. I tried hamsters and guinea pigs first, but they kept dying on me due to the poison they put on the lettuce and cabbage in the fields. I had one autopsied to find this out, and realized chinchillas had a longer and heartier lifestyle/span.
 
Inca apparently did not know when to quit when she encountered the porcupine on Victoria Day, May 23rd. These are the pictures the vet sent before the long (and expensive) procedure to remove the quills. She had thousands of quills, and her tongue was so covered, she could not close her mouth.

It was pretty scary at first. She is doing okay now, but looks like a World War III survivor as they had to cut some out in places, stitched between her toes, and many quills bled on removal.

Here are still quills buried in her, but they should work their way out over time (I pulled four more today). She is on antibiotics and pain meds and thankfully is doing quite well.
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:(
 
Kea has already niminated my favourite animal so I will nominate the Racoon

racoon.jpg


Its has as much of its brain dedicated to touch as we do to sight. They ar incredibly addative animals.
 
spiralx said:
Waterbears!

t03.jpg


t04.jpg


t01.jpg


Tardigrades (as they're properly called) are less than a millimetre long, live everywhere (including in hot springs, on top of the Himalayas, under 5 m layers of solid ice and on ocean floors) and can survive almost anything - they are able to go freeze themselves into dehydrated state for years, and whilst in this state can survive temperatures of -272.8 °C for days, being placed in boiling water for several minutes, over a thousand times the fatal dosage of radiation for a human, being in a vacuum or pressures several times atmospheric pressure and various chemicals.

Which is bloody amazing if you ask me!
Click to expand...

There's a theory that this is how life might have spread to other planets - if they can travel in space indefinitely, they could have made their way elsewhere, or indeed have come frome somewhere else.
 
Phototropic said:
How it gods name did it get them all over its head!? I mean surely it should be just in the frint and then the dog would have pegged it?
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It looks like a pit-bull of some sort doesn't it? I hate pit-bulls and other fighting dogs. Exterminate the fuckers I say.

*goes out to buy a porcupine*
 



A bat eared fox. It does what it says on the tin. I once saw one of these in a remote valley in the Namib desert. I'd be driving with a friend for a few days - it was enormously hot and we were beginning to worry that we were going a bit crazy - this did not help. Though we took photos so have proof we found one... :)
 
Bob said:



A bat eared fox. It does what it says on the tin. I once saw one of these in a remote valley in the Namib desert. I'd be driving with a friend for a few days - it was enormously hot and we were beginning to worry that we were going a bit crazy - this did not help. Though we took photos so have proof we found one... :)
Click to expand...


Dr Spock would be envious of those ears :eek:
 
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