Nudibranch

Submitted by: Carmen



The above nudibranch is the Spanish Shawl. So pretty and elegant! Nudibranchs are colored so brightly to help them blend in with flowers. It's also a warning that they may occasionally be poisonous. Why only occasionally? It tuns out nudibranchs can eat poisonous animals (such as poisonous sponges or sea anemones), and then they can store the poisons in their own body and use that against other predators. Oh yeah, they can also be cannibalistic. As a form of sea slug, nudibranchs have to pretty much eat whatever they can find swimming around (since they are slow). It's rough down there folks.

Anglerfish

Submitted by: Kate



I know what you're thinking. The anglerfish looks super weird, end of story, right? That is wrong and you are shallow. Shameful. The anglerfish is weird for many other reasons.

Firstly, the fleshy outgrowth on their heads (the "esca") is used to lure their prey in, at which point they snap up whoever falls for this bit of trickery in their huge jaws. Apparently they are lazy, because the jaw snapping is a reflexive action that happens on contact with the esca. Deep sea anglerfish have the added bonus of bioluminescence in their esca. I suppose this makes them extra creepy during deep sea dives.

Okay, now...the point of this whole write up, and animalsareweird in general. Animal mating habits tend to be a bit on the weird side as it is, but even sea horses (future entry!) stop and say "whoa, you do what now?" I hope you're sitting down for this. Upon maturation, the digestive system of male anglerfish start degenerating and they can't feed themselves. Okay. Great. This causes them to desperately search for a female, and upon finding them, the male bites into the females skin and secretes an enzyme that fuses the two together. The male then starts degenerating into just a pair of gonads (still attached to the female, mind you) and just sort of hangs around until the female eggs are ready to be fertilized. Then, to complete the circle of bizzarro life, the eggs are then laid in a long thin gelatinous sheet, 2-3 feet wide and 25 - 30 feet long.

Oh, and they supposedly taste like lobster.

Manatee

Submitted by: Erika S. after spotting some spattered paint that she said was a manatee with a unicorn horn



Manatees, aka the sea cow, have been recently described to me as the "happiest sea animal". I think dolphins and seals would dispute that non-fact, but I digress. Manatees are apparently evolved from four legged land animals about 60 million (give or take), and their closest living relatives are elephants (WHAT?) and hyraxes (WHO? WHAT????). They are also quite gigantic, weighing upwards of 900 lbs and being 9 - 10 feet long. Manatees prefer warm water, and their bodies can't handle cold water. Oddly, they like to hang out around power plants (which warm the water) unlike every other animal (I'm just guessing...I don't swim near power plants to avoid weird mutations so I don't know what kinds of animals live near them).

I think this is pretty well known, but manatees are believed to be the reason mermaid legends exist. If you look at the above picture, you can see why manatees are easily confused for hot half scaly fish ladies. Although, many months at sea probably warps the mind a bit anyway (this is EXACTLY why I am not a pirate).

They do look like they're smiling though, don't they?

Box Jellyfish

Submitted by: Nick, who is a lover of all things tie related. Be sure to check him out and give your support to this very important life-altering project.



The box jellyfish is native to the aforementioned Australia, Land of 1,000 Dooms. It is also identified by experts as the DEADLIEST CREATURE ALIVE. How do we know this? Consider the following: they have many many tentacles with which to sting you with their powerful neurotoxins. Once they sting you, the pain is excruciating...to the point that you are likely to go into shock and drown (while writhing in pain). The pain is so strong that, should you make it to shore, you will probably wish you had drowned. They are also responsible for the overwhelming majority of reported yearly marine animal related deaths, with many more deaths estimated from indigenous tribes (who don't report such things).

Why do they sting? There are chemicals on your skin that cause box jellyfish to freak out and start stinging once you touch them. Not very nice. To prevent this, Australian lifeguards wear nylon pantyhose on their arms and legs, which the jellyfish can't sting through (wetsuits don't work nearly as well, FYI). They may look silly, but not as silly as you will when spazzing on the beach uncontrollably.

As a SPOILER for a future post, Australia also has the deadliest snakes (6 of the top 10, including number 1!), many other deadly marine animals, deadly spiders, so on and so on. I haven't fact checked this yet, but even honey bees are deadly down there!

Yeti Crab

AKA, the Kiwa Hirsuta. Recently discovered, the Yeti Crab dwells in the South Pacific close to Easter Island (a weird locale featuring the world famous Moai Statues), in hyrdothermal vents (WHAT?) near volcanic activity. It eats green algae, shrimp, and bacteria (yuck?). Oh, it has furry claws.

Blobfish

Seriously, WTH? At least it's accurately named.

Blobfish live in the deep waters of Australia and Tasmania. They stay afloat because their bodies are composed of a gelatinous mass slightly denser than water. Also, they are quite gross.