All the furry, lovable creatures in the animal kingdom get the most love but they’re also a little boring do to overexposure in popular culture. Below, I’ve listed a number of animals that are remarkable in many different ways but these aren’t your standard zoo animals, folks. These animals are from the other side of the tracks.
Touch Me and It Might Be the Last Thing You Do
Poison Dart Frog
There are some things on this planet so deadly, you’d never want to come across one, no matter how beautiful or stunning it may look. This would be the quintessential animal that looks gorgeous but has a secret for you: it’s the most dangerous animal on land. There’s a poison it secretes out of its skin that’s so deadly, the amount of a pinhead can send 20,000 mice and 10 fully grown men to the morgue. Another interesting little tidbit: these frogs gain their potency from the poisonous ants that consist of their diet. Even more interesting is that if you took one of these out of the wild and kept it as a pet, it wouldn’t be as poisonous since it wouldn’t be feeding on those same potent little ants.
Belcher’s Sea Snake
It lives in the ocean, doesn’t bother anybody and it’s one of the most docile snakes in the world. But hold your horses, buddy, this ain’t just a nice, timid snake. No, the Belcher’s sea snake happens to be the most venomous snake on the planet. Yes, more toxic than the black mamba, any taipan or the Indian krait. It is even more poisonous than another snake of the ocean, the beaked sea snake. Luckily for us all, it doesn’t like to bite and even when it does, it rarely injects enough of its venom to kill a man. However, if it was provoked more than it liked, you’d be a dead man.
Buggin’ Out
Rhinocerous Beetle
Ever seen that World’s Strongest Man competition on ESPN with the gargantuan men from another planet competing by showing how strong they are? Well, in the animal kingdom, those guys ain’t squat! Elephants, gorillas, rhinos, they don’t even have anything on the rhinocerous beetle which can carry 850 times its own weight. But rhino beetles also have another cool little fact about them: they’re part of the famous scarabidae family of beetles. This is the exact species the ancient Egyptians were known to worship.
Army Ant
There’s something you should immediately know about ants: our military mimics many of the organizational tactics that ants use since they’ve been so effective for millions of years. And, the ultimate army of ants is none other than the aptly named army ant which lives for annihilating the ever-loving crap out of any living creature in its path. Not only that, but the ants are fricken blind! Here’s a list of animals army ants are known to kill: insects, tarantulas, scorpions, lizards, snakes, frogs, and chickens.
We’ve Got Superpowers
Spitting Cobra
Everyone knows a cobra is super venomous and the spitting cobra is no different as a bite from one of these guys will earn you an emergency room visit. But, let’s say you happen upon one in the wild and do the right thing by keeping your distance. The cobra, having a bad morning, spits out a nice dosage of venom right into your retinas, sending you into skull-splitting pain. You may also be blinded for life. In the world of animals, this snake has a double-fisted arsenal of venom.
Electric Eel
First of all, let’s get one thing straight: electric eels aren’t eels, they’re knifefishes, which is sort of related to catfish. Aside from that fact, there’s this one: this fricken thing is electric! Should you be barefoot in the Amazon or Orinico Rivers in South America and decide to grab one of these, it’s capable of zapping your ass with up to 500 volts! That’s AWESOME. I mean, if you touch one, you’re a fool and deserve to get shocked but either way, a fish that can electrocute something sporadically for over an hour is a bad ass creature.
The Things I Can Do Will Blow Your Mind
Peregrine Falcon
When an animal can literally go faster than a really fast sports car, it deserves some props. At 200 miles an hour, the peregrine falcon dives after its prey, going faster than any other animal in the world. In fact, it’s going so fast, that it would normally damage a bird’s lungs if not for special tubercles in their nostrils that do something scientific that’s hard to explain that prevents this from happening. It swoops down and stuns the bird in mid-air and then spins around to catch it in mid-air. Cool, huh? If it’s too heavy to hold, it’ll just drop its victim from the sky and lets the ground do the rest of the damage.
Mimic Octopus
Perhaps one of my favorite invertebrates ever, the mimic octopus is the closest thing to living animation you’ll find on this earth. It’s as if you’re watching a cartoon creature do things only seen on television. The mimic octopus is the only octopus that impersonates other creatures, often using disguises of venomous sea creatures to fend off predators such as sharks and barracuda. There isn’t much more I can personally do to explain how awesome these things are unless I put that damn youtube video of one up. So here you go:
Didn’t Think We Could Get This Big, Did You?
Goliath Frog
We’ve all seen frogs and usually, for the most part, they’re small in nature, able to fit inside our hands. Sure, there are some exceptions but the goliath frog is the biggest exception of them all. It’s huge! Look how that thing sits in the girl’s lap above as if it was the pet dog, rather than a giant fricken frog. Strangely, the frog looks like it doesn’t know what the hell is going one while the two younger brothers seem to have other things on their mind, like getting the hell away from the giant frog. Living in the rivers of West Africa, goliath frogs are so big they’re able to feed on crabs and other frogs!
Mekong Giant Catfish
Anybody up for some fried catfish? If you are, bring the entire family and friends and, hell, bring the whole fricken neighborhood because we’re going to have plenty of fish to fry after we’re through with this big boy. Actually, there’s not much of a chance we’d be allowed to catch one since they’re highly endangered and heavily protected. However, there are some things you look at and can’t believe you’re looking at: this is definitely one of them. I’ve seen many different kinds of catfish but none are this size. This thing is so enormous, in fact, there are local legends of these giant fish swallowing people whole. I even saw a special on Animal Planet where a renown biologist said he would not be surprised if that were true. YIKES!
Me & My Homey Go Way Back
Cockroach
Before you vomit, understand one thing about this creature that’s awesome: THEY CAN SURVIVE ANYTHING!!! I hate cockroaches just as much as the next person, maybe even more if that’s possible, but their statistics are phenomenal against all other living creatures in the animal kingdom. They’ve been on the planet for a good 350 million years. Their resilience is what’s so incredible as they’re capable of going a month without food, over 40 minutes without air and one of the most radiation resistant animals on earth (the fruit fly is even more so, believe it or not). They’re disgusting, filthy, repulsive and downright nasty but you can’t knock their incredible ability to overcome just about anything over 350 million years.
Sharks
While the roach goes back 350 million years, the shark has it beat at more than 400 million years roaming the planet’s waters. Hell, sharks are so old, they’ve got the dinosaurs beat on age and they’re the ones still on earth. There are species that can swim in freshwater (bull sharks) and some that can tolerate conditions at close to 10,000 feet below the water. Their smell is ridiculous, having the ability to smell a drop of blood from over a mile away. So, even if you entered the water with a paper cut, a shark might drop by to say hello. There are species of sharks all over the world, and yes, even in the arctic regions. They are known to have hearing that can pick up prey from a few miles away. One last fact: whale sharks and spiny dogfish have been known to live over 100 years.
