Introduction
Nature can never stop to surprise us. Earth is an immense planet having an abundant of creatures and there is a variety of creatures that have been very big and majestic also creatures that are very scary and some are very weird. Of these the number of animals that are strange, so absurdly shaped or so strangely behaved, that they appear to have but little right to exist, are not a few. However, they do. These animals question our concepts of evolution, survival and design in the nature. In this article, we are going to touch upon five of those animals that will appear on the pages of a fantasy novel rather than in this world.
The Axolotl: The Immortal teenager
Axolotl is one of the types of salamanders who can be found in the Mexican lakes. The axolotl never matures like most of the amphibians as the amphibians grow up through metamorphosis. It preserves its juvenile characteristics all through its life getting the concept of neoteny. It has frilly outer gills and feathery branches of its head, in addition to which it always smiles, which makes it resemble a Pokemon rather than an animal in the wild.
What is more bizarre is that it can replace virtually any part of its body, say with limbs, spinal cord, heart, and even fragments of its cerebral system. Axolotls modes of regeneration are under study by scientists in a bid to understand the regeneration process among human beings. Although the biology of the axolotl is mind-blowing, this species is under serious threat in nature because of pollution and destruction of the habitats.
What is a Shoebill Stork: Dinosaur in Disguise
The standing almost five feet tall shoebill stork of central Africa appears to have come out of Jurassic Park. It also has sharp eyes, big clawed feet and most importantly, huge shoe-like bill. This beak is as long as 9 inches long and is also capable of crushing the skulls using the bones of large preys such as baby crocodiles and lungfish.
The next thing that contributes to its spooky existence is its conduct. The shoebill is mostly silent but during communication, it produces loud clattering sounds of his bills like that of machine-gun. It will sit as still as a rock several hours, watching game, and then start at a flash. This prehistoric-looking bird appears as something that belongs to the yester years, and yet, it lives in primitive swamps and marshlands nowadays.
The Naked Mole Rat The Rule Breaker of the Nature
Naked mole rat is an ugly creature resembling a hairless sausage with teeth on the first look. It is present in East Africa and does not stick to numerous rules of biology. To begin with it does not age like other animals. Although other rats have a normal life span of four years, the naked mole rats have had the potential to live as much as 30 years without aging or getting cancerous.
They even are cold blooded mammals and that is very unusual. Majority of the mammals have a temperature regulation process within their bodies yet the naked mole rats rely on the temperature in their environment. They are eusocial colony living underground as ants and bees with a single breeding female called queen.
Their pain receptors are bizarre even. They also lack some forms of pain like that caused by acid or chilli peppers and thus they are the best candidates of research in terms of determining the methods of relieving pain and ageing. There are too many peculiarities in such a small animal, it is impossible to imagine that they exist, but it is a reality.
THE Saiga Antelope: The Martian of the Steppes
Saiga antelope is a mammal that freely wanders in wide plains of Central Asia and Russia. Its nose is the strangest attribute about it that makes it one of the weirdest animals on the planet. Differing with any other mammal, saiga has a big, floppy, puffable snout resembling the setting of a Star Wars motion picture.
This weird nose does not serve as a decoration. It not only removes dust particles of the dry steppes but also controls the temperature of the air heating cold air during the winter period and cooling hot air due to the high temperature in summer. Regrettably, the populations of saiga have been wiped out because of poaching, sickness and encroachment on their habitat despite their fascinating adaptation.
There was incidence of a massive death, exceeding 200,000 in a couple of weeks, of saigas in 2015 because of a bizarre bacterial outbreak occasioned by short-term changes in weather. The odd and endangered antelope is racing against time with conservationists trying to save the little that is left of the animal.
The Furry, Deep-sea Claws Yeti Crab
Found in 2005, the yeti crab inhabits the deep-sea hydrothermal vents found in the dark and high-pressure conditions. It is named after its furry claws that have the appearance of the arms of the legend known as Yeti. It is not just the matter of these hairs being pretty. They are enveloped with bacteria through which the crab survives on by cleaning up the toxic chemicals in waters around the vents.
To respond, the crab and other organisms appear to cultivate these bacteria by beating their claws on the mineralized waters so that the bacteria would grow and multiply. The two species live in mutual relationship letting the crab live in a place that would otherwise be hostile to most life.
Having no eyes and a soft, ghostly white shell, yeti crab is an alien looking creature found only recently and yet to be studied regarding its adaptations and behaviours.
Conclusion
These five animal creatures namely the axolotl, shoebill stork, naked mole rat, saiga antelope, and yeti crab create evidence that reality is usually stranger as compared to fiction. Even in the most undesirable environment of the murkiest depths of the ocean or in secluded bogs and arid deserts life on earth has managed to scale through and come up with the most unimaginably spontaneous life. The creatures may resemble bugs in the simulation but in the real world, they play an important ecological role and feel free to introduce us to the unlimited creative abilities of the nature.
These animals share valuable information on everything that sciences touch on including the human medicine and environmental adaptation. Most importantly these remind us of the fact that we still do not know so much about our planet and that is the very thing that makes it so engaging.
