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6 Animals That Show Mother Nature's Sense of Humor
BY MISS CELLANIA
You've heard jokes like these all your life: What do you get if you cross an octopus with a cow? An animal that can milk itself. I didn't find such an animal, but the world has plenty of strange species that at first glance appear to be hybrids of unrelated species because they have attributes that surprise us. However, we are only surprised because our personal experiences don't encompass all that nature offers.
1. Turtle + Hedgehog = Armadillo
Rudyard Kipling wrote the story The Beginning of the Armadillos, in which the animal came from a tortoise and a hedgehog. They didn't join to give birth to armadillos; instead, they taught each other their talents. The hedgehog helped the tortoise learn to curl into a ball, and the tortoise taught the hedgehog to swim, which toughened up his spines into armor. Before they knew it, both had turned into armadillos.
Here in the real world, armadillos are related to both sloths and anteaters and are native to Latin America except for the nine-banded armadillo we see in the US. In certain states they are called "speed bumps". Armadillo image by Flickr user Ben Cooper.
2. Giraffe + Zebra = Okapi
The okapi (Okapia johnstoni) appears to be a short giraffe with a zebra's legs tacked on as an afterthought. The animal, which lives only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (and in zoos), is actually related to the giraffe but was "shorted" in the neck department. To make up for that oversight, the okapi has a tongue long enough to lick its own ears! The zebra stripes are thought to be used as camouflage, and to make it easy for okapi young to follow their mothers through the rain forest. Okapi image by Raul654.
3. Anteater + Armadillo = Pangolin
The pangolin is also known as the spiny anteater. They are mammals, but have keratin scales over their bodies. They roll up into a ball in defense like an armadillo or a hedgehog. Recent genetic studies show that pangolins are related to neither anteaters (despite the fact that they eat ants) nor armadillos. But the weirdness doesn't stop there: pangolins can spray a nasty musk just like a skunk. And they don't have any teeth!
4. Bird + Fox = Fruit Bat
Fruit bats encompass several species and are also called megabats or flying foxes. What sets fruit bats apart from your garden variety insect-eating belfry-hangers is the fact that most fruit bats do not use echolocation to get around. They need their eyes big and their noses long to sense where they are going, so their faces look like more familiar land mammals—particularly dogs. No doubt that's where the term flying fox came from. If you couldn't see a fruit bat's wings, you might have a hard time guessing the species. Fox image by Flickr user Kris *Thirty6Red*. Bat image by Flickr user smccann.
5. Duck + Beaver = Platypus
The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) of Australia looks like a taxidermy experiment in which a mammal has been accessorized with a beaver's tail, a duck's bill, the venom of a snake, and the feet of an otter. This animal is not related to any of the others, however. The platypus is a monotreme. It shares that order with only four other species which are all echidnas. It is truly unique in the animal kingdom, and the most likely of any in this list to be an example of God's sense of humor. Platypus image by Stefan Kraft.
6. Hoop Snake + Lizard = Armadillo Girdled Lizard
This lizard might be what people saw when they came up with the legend of the hoop snake (featured in a previous post). You don't find too many lizards that protect themselves by rolling into a ball, but the Armadillo Girdled Lizard (Cordylus cataphractus) does just that. This lizard grabs its tail with its mouth and forms a ring with its spines pointing out. Any predator will have a hard time figuring this thing out, much less eating it! The name is just a descriptor; this lizard has no relation to an armadillo, which is a mammal.
Can you think of other examples of animals that look like hybrids of unrelated species?
BY MISS CELLANIA
You've heard jokes like these all your life: What do you get if you cross an octopus with a cow? An animal that can milk itself. I didn't find such an animal, but the world has plenty of strange species that at first glance appear to be hybrids of unrelated species because they have attributes that surprise us. However, we are only surprised because our personal experiences don't encompass all that nature offers.
1. Turtle + Hedgehog = Armadillo
Rudyard Kipling wrote the story The Beginning of the Armadillos, in which the animal came from a tortoise and a hedgehog. They didn't join to give birth to armadillos; instead, they taught each other their talents. The hedgehog helped the tortoise learn to curl into a ball, and the tortoise taught the hedgehog to swim, which toughened up his spines into armor. Before they knew it, both had turned into armadillos.
Here in the real world, armadillos are related to both sloths and anteaters and are native to Latin America except for the nine-banded armadillo we see in the US. In certain states they are called "speed bumps". Armadillo image by Flickr user Ben Cooper.
2. Giraffe + Zebra = Okapi
The okapi (Okapia johnstoni) appears to be a short giraffe with a zebra's legs tacked on as an afterthought. The animal, which lives only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (and in zoos), is actually related to the giraffe but was "shorted" in the neck department. To make up for that oversight, the okapi has a tongue long enough to lick its own ears! The zebra stripes are thought to be used as camouflage, and to make it easy for okapi young to follow their mothers through the rain forest. Okapi image by Raul654.
3. Anteater + Armadillo = Pangolin
The pangolin is also known as the spiny anteater. They are mammals, but have keratin scales over their bodies. They roll up into a ball in defense like an armadillo or a hedgehog. Recent genetic studies show that pangolins are related to neither anteaters (despite the fact that they eat ants) nor armadillos. But the weirdness doesn't stop there: pangolins can spray a nasty musk just like a skunk. And they don't have any teeth!
4. Bird + Fox = Fruit Bat
Fruit bats encompass several species and are also called megabats or flying foxes. What sets fruit bats apart from your garden variety insect-eating belfry-hangers is the fact that most fruit bats do not use echolocation to get around. They need their eyes big and their noses long to sense where they are going, so their faces look like more familiar land mammals—particularly dogs. No doubt that's where the term flying fox came from. If you couldn't see a fruit bat's wings, you might have a hard time guessing the species. Fox image by Flickr user Kris *Thirty6Red*. Bat image by Flickr user smccann.
5. Duck + Beaver = Platypus
The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) of Australia looks like a taxidermy experiment in which a mammal has been accessorized with a beaver's tail, a duck's bill, the venom of a snake, and the feet of an otter. This animal is not related to any of the others, however. The platypus is a monotreme. It shares that order with only four other species which are all echidnas. It is truly unique in the animal kingdom, and the most likely of any in this list to be an example of God's sense of humor. Platypus image by Stefan Kraft.
6. Hoop Snake + Lizard = Armadillo Girdled Lizard
This lizard might be what people saw when they came up with the legend of the hoop snake (featured in a previous post). You don't find too many lizards that protect themselves by rolling into a ball, but the Armadillo Girdled Lizard (Cordylus cataphractus) does just that. This lizard grabs its tail with its mouth and forms a ring with its spines pointing out. Any predator will have a hard time figuring this thing out, much less eating it! The name is just a descriptor; this lizard has no relation to an armadillo, which is a mammal.
Can you think of other examples of animals that look like hybrids of unrelated species?
Dirty Mcdrawz
Your girl loves em....
All that racc00n needs is a cape and he’s :pawning:
Found: A Natural Egg-Incubator in the Deep Ocean
Who knew hydrothermal vents make such great nurseries?
BY VITTORIA TRAVERSO
Hydrothermal vents produced super-heated water on the ocean floor. OET/NAUTILUSLIVE
FOR DEEP OCEAN DWELLERS, EVERYTHING seems to take a long time. Take the Pacific white skate (Bathyraja spinosissima), a pale, cartilaginous fish that can live nearly 10,000 feet down. Once a skate has laid a fertilized egg—in a tough case called a
mermaid’s purse“—it can take four years of incubation before a new skate emerges. But according to a new study, the creatures have a way to speed up the process.
In 2015 a team of scientists from the University of Rhode Island (URI) and the Charles Darwin Research Station were exploring the deep seafloor in the eastern Pacific Ocean, near the Galápagos Islands, when they noticed a large number of skate eggs lying close to hydrothermal vents, fissures in the seafloor that produce plumes of water heated by geothermal activity below.
“We were on a really deep dive in a hydrothermally active rift valley, with walls 30 meters tall on either side, and the ROV [remotely operated vehicle] was meandering back and forth looking for vents,” said Brennan Phillips, an oceanographer at URI who led the exploration, in a statement. “We started noticing all these egg cases, and we recorded their location and collected a few but then just kept going.”
Skate eggs, like this deep sea example, are known as “mermaid purses.” OET/NAUTILUSLIVE
The ROV gathered data on the location of 157 egg cases in total, and observed that more than half of them were seen within 66 feet of hot vents, and nearly 90 percent were in places where geothermal activity warmed the surrounding water.
“The eggs weren’t right next to the active vents, because the water can get so hot—hundreds of degrees—that it would kill them,” Phillips added. “We found most of them in lukewarm water not far from the vents and near some extinct vents.” As reported in a study published this week in the journal Scientific Reports, the team concluded that skates intentionally place their nurseries near vents to accelerate the development of the embryos.
According to the study, it is known from fossil evidence that some dinosaurs laid their eggs in soil warmed by volcanoes, a practice also employed by Polynesian megapode birds. But this is the first time that such a strategy has been reported in the ocean. Researchers now hope to identify and protect these underwater nurseries.
Who knew hydrothermal vents make such great nurseries?
BY VITTORIA TRAVERSO
Hydrothermal vents produced super-heated water on the ocean floor. OET/NAUTILUSLIVE
FOR DEEP OCEAN DWELLERS, EVERYTHING seems to take a long time. Take the Pacific white skate (Bathyraja spinosissima), a pale, cartilaginous fish that can live nearly 10,000 feet down. Once a skate has laid a fertilized egg—in a tough case called a
mermaid’s purse“—it can take four years of incubation before a new skate emerges. But according to a new study, the creatures have a way to speed up the process.
In 2015 a team of scientists from the University of Rhode Island (URI) and the Charles Darwin Research Station were exploring the deep seafloor in the eastern Pacific Ocean, near the Galápagos Islands, when they noticed a large number of skate eggs lying close to hydrothermal vents, fissures in the seafloor that produce plumes of water heated by geothermal activity below.
“We were on a really deep dive in a hydrothermally active rift valley, with walls 30 meters tall on either side, and the ROV [remotely operated vehicle] was meandering back and forth looking for vents,” said Brennan Phillips, an oceanographer at URI who led the exploration, in a statement. “We started noticing all these egg cases, and we recorded their location and collected a few but then just kept going.”
Skate eggs, like this deep sea example, are known as “mermaid purses.” OET/NAUTILUSLIVE
The ROV gathered data on the location of 157 egg cases in total, and observed that more than half of them were seen within 66 feet of hot vents, and nearly 90 percent were in places where geothermal activity warmed the surrounding water.
“The eggs weren’t right next to the active vents, because the water can get so hot—hundreds of degrees—that it would kill them,” Phillips added. “We found most of them in lukewarm water not far from the vents and near some extinct vents.” As reported in a study published this week in the journal Scientific Reports, the team concluded that skates intentionally place their nurseries near vents to accelerate the development of the embryos.
According to the study, it is known from fossil evidence that some dinosaurs laid their eggs in soil warmed by volcanoes, a practice also employed by Polynesian megapode birds. But this is the first time that such a strategy has been reported in the ocean. Researchers now hope to identify and protect these underwater nurseries.
ndthentherewasx
El Capitan
BBC America has alot of nature shows.
I recommend watching, getting if you all dont fukk with that channel yet.
I recommend watching, getting if you all dont fukk with that channel yet.
