Bristle Millipede

Image: Biopix, G Drange

In one way, the smallest porcupine in the world is the Rothschild's Porcupine from South America. In another way, it's not a porcupine at all. It's a millipede.

Lion's Mane Mushroom

Image: Wikipedia

Whoa! Er... did Santa snag his beard on something?

This here is the Lion's Mane Mushroom, also known as the Bearded Tooth Mushroom, Pom Pom Mushroom and lots of other names involving beards and hedgehogs. Also Hericium erinaceus, and according to Google Translate erinaceus means 'hedgehog'. So that's nice.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I'm saying 'Merry Christmas!' to everyone, see?

Also Boxing Day. May your cold turkey remain unusually palatable for a long time to come.

RemBunction

Hawaiian Squirrelfish

Image: WorldFish Center - FishBase

Just some random Christmassy garb!

Christmas Tree Worm

Image: Wikimedia

Do you have a Christmas tree? What colour is it? Blue? Yellow? A gentle cascade of white atop deep reds and mahogany extremities? I sure hope it's not green. Terribly passé...

You scratch my dorsal fin, I'll scratch yours

Image: Aleš Kocourek
Giant Moray

We last left the Moray Eel a fearsome creature of the night, his heart darkened by years of solitude, his face grimacing in the shadow of his own bitter soul. You definitely don't want to kick your football into his garden.

Atolla Jellyfish

Image: NOAA

Just in time for the holiday season! Some kind of alternative dreamcatcher. Red with tentacles. Just what the world was calling for!

Spitting Spider

Image: Michel Vuijlsteke via Flickr

This is absolutely nuts! How on earth have I managed to reach a double-digits age without hearing about this thing?! No fair!

Spitting Spiders do exactly what it sounds like they do. I remember Spider Man could squirt out a gooey mess, and he was 15 when he got bitten by that radioactive spider so... no, never mind. The point is, was Spider Man's gooey mess poisonous? I don't think it was!

Himalayan Relict Dragonfly

Image: chochoensis

Now that we know all about the differences between Dragonflies and Damselflies, we can appreciate the confusion caused by the Himalayan Relict Dragonfly and its one and only related species.

What's the Difference Between Damselflies and Dragonflies?

Image: Colon Archilla, Alfredo
Red Setwing, Dythemis rufinervis
A Dragonfly

Dragonflies and Damselflies together form the order Odonata and also happen to comprise some of the objectively best, living things in the world, ever... FACT!

Being so closely related you can appreciate that they'd be pretty similar, but there are also some clear differences. It isn't that the local villagers have to offer up a Damselfly every year to stop the ferocious Dragonfly from coming into town all angry and hungry, but the Dragons are the more formidable beast.

Let's see!

Shoebill

Image: Wikimedia

I've long been a fan of the Shoebill. They just look so... dangerous. I'm a huge fan of dangerous things that can't hurt me in any way. In fact, that's my favourite kind of dangerous!

Kitefin Shark

Oh dear.

Oh dear me, no.

It wasn't long after the Cookiecutter Shark that I discovered they have a big brother. It's in a different genus and dissimilar in many ways, but the Kitefin Shark is more closely related to the Cookiecutter than it is to any other shark. Also... TEETH!

Lionfish

Broadbarred Firefish
Image: Wikipedia

The beautiful, deadly and exquisitely lethal Lionfish. Clear evidence that we can all be murderous and look good doing it!

Cookiecutter Shark

Oh No! There's a shark!

Arrrggghh!

It's only 50 cm (19 inches) long.

Phew!

Wait... it's a Cookiecutter!

AAAARRRRGGH!

Japanese Spider Crab

Image: Wikipedia

The GIANT Japanese Spider Crab! Or Macrocheira kaempferi. Or 高脚蟹, which means "tall-footed crab"... you can say that again!

Red-footed Cannibalfly

Image: Lynette S. via Flickr

When you come across something called the Red-footed Cannibalfly, you don't keep it to yourself. You glory in his name!

Robber Fly

Image: Wikipedia

I've always sort of liked Robber Flies. I knew a bit about their predatory nature and strangely chunky legs, but I never knew much more than that.

It's a bit like being aware of a movie that was out when you were a child, you never saw it but you know you would've really loved it if you had.

Well, I'm glad to finally find out some more about this formidable, aerial predator. And I must say, I'm impressed!.

Pangolin

Image: Wikimedia

The Pangolin! Like a walking pinecone! Like an animate artichoke! Like an already strange looking animal fell into a barrel of gigantic fingernails and became even more strange looking!

Greater Adjutant

Image: Wikipedia

The Greater Adjutant is a huge, shockingly unattractive stork from parts of India and south-east Asia. Being a close relative of Africa's Marabou Stork, it seems this particular brand of ugly has gone global!

Boneworm

Image: Adrian Glover, Natural History Museum

We've seen some really weird annelid worms in our time. Ones with tentacles. Ones with powerful jaws. Even ones with gigantic floating buttocks.

It's amazing what the kin of the humble earthworm is able to get up to!

Here, however, is something a little different. Alongside the weird appendages and sticky-out bits, Boneworms, members of the genus Osedax, have also lost some stuff. Important stuff. Stuff like a mouth and stomach.

Monkfish

Image: Wikimedia

Monkfish! Goosefish! Headfish! Mother-in-law fish!

Whatever you call these monsters in your part of the world, it's ever apparent that we're talking about some kind of fish!

Giant African Millipede

Je t'aime...

There are a number of related species that get called African Giant Millipedes. They all share a lot in common, not least being great, big millipedes from Africa. Hence!

Red Eyed Crocodile Skink

Image: Henk Wallays

I remember mornings when I felt like how the Red Eyed Crocodile Skink looks.

Dragging myself out of bed, joints cracking with every move, my back so stiff it felt like it was made of a single plank of wood.

Microscopic Worlds, a great video!

I saw this and just had to share, it's amazing!

Microscopic Worlds - Life that we don't see

by Daniel Stoupin.

In the original post you can find out all the labours that went into making it. There were many! Also, the galleries at Microworlds Photography have lots of incredible microscope images to gawp at.

The video features several familiar characters, like Copepods, Water Bears and the squishy, all-conquering tower of malice that is the Hydra. There are also a whole lot more we'll have to get round to!

Sponge

Image: California Academy of Sciences

Sponges are some 5 or 10,000 members of the phylum Porifera, meaning "pore bearer". They really are full of holes, which I guess is why they're called Sponges, too. But we'll get to that!

Microwhip Scorpion

Yet another arachnid that gets called a scorpion but isn't a scorpion at all! This time we're discovering one of the most overlooked and unknown of them all. You might need a magnifying glass for this one.

Honduran White Bat

Image: Wikimedia

BATS! What does that make you think of? A dark, creature of the night, perhaps? Wings of skin stretched across grotesquely extended fingers? Grim beasts roosting in dank caves, amassing a gigantic heap of dung so vast the very air is a defensive fortification?

For the most part you'd be right, but the Honduran White Bat is a little different.

Swamp Eel

Image: Wikimedia

Swamp Eels seem to have taken the "less is more" thing to an extraordinary degree. Apparently, great success and durability can come from simply ridding yourself of various body parts.

Bobbit Worm

Image: Wikipedia

Bobbit Worms are massive, nocturnal polychaete worms whose front end is dominated by a pair of astonishingly cruel jaws. Most creatures have their implements of death hidden beneath cheeks, lips or friendly smiles, but the Bobbit Worm has them right out on show. It's like if deer used their antlers to capture and kill struggling prey.

Upside Down Jellyfish

Image: Lyndi&Jason via Flickr

OK, Cnidarians. So you got your polyps which are like the Sea Anemones. You turn it upside down and you got a medusa, which is like a jellyfish. But what happens when a medusa goes upside down again and tries out the polyp life without actually being a polyp? You just got yourself an Upside Down Jellyfish!

Natural Born Hallowe'en Horrors

It's Hallowe'en! That time of year when we celebrate death, join hands with darkness and are thankful for all the wonderful things that evil brings to our lives. Woo!

Behold Death. He's out of his coffin, handing out drinks, telling jokes and being the ironic life of the party he always knew he could be.

Here be Darkness. She's put down the razor blades and is now coaching zombies and ghouls on how to lead a full and purposeful life.

Yonder is Evil. He's dressed up in a long, white robe with a little cardboard halo fixed onto his head with a piece of wire. He does that every year but it's hilarious every time!

But there are some creatures out there that are ever so slightly ghoulish all year round. They just can't help it! Let's take a look at a few of them:

Arrow-shaped Micrathena

Image: cotinis via Flick

This is Micrathena sagittata, what has got to be one of the most startlingly diabolical spiders in the world. I'm scared!

Flapjack Devilfish

Flapjack Devilfish are 20 or so species of deep sea octopus in the genus Opisthoteuthis. They are closely related to our very own Dumbo Octopus and boy does it show!

Vampire Finch

Sharp-beaked Ground Finches are from the Galápagos Islands. They eat seeds and invertebrates. A perfectly respectable diet. But there is a subspecies of this particular finch that lives in rather dry areas. Areas where fresh water is hard to come by. They'll need to find water from somewhere. I wonder where they could possibly find it?

Flatid Leaf Bug, Phromnia rosea

Adult
Image: Frank.Vassen via Flickr

Adults
Image: Wikipedia

Flatid Leaf Bug. This is a seriously unsatisfactory common name. It's as if no-one actually saw this gorgeous little beast! It's even a member of the family Flatidae, which means a whole host of relatives could have exactly the same name whilst being brown, white, green or anything else.

Tripod Fish

It must be so strange. You take a submersible or a remotely operated underwater vehicle into the deep sea. You fiddle around with the controls, the lighting and camera equipment so you can see what you're looking at. You reach the ocean floor and what do you find? Camera equipment!

A Stapeliad by any other name would smell as rotten

Stapelia variegata
Image: Aqua-Marina via Flickr

I love it when a flower stinks of carrion! It's just the perfect perversion and it's great to see plants come across interesting ways to join the Ranks of Monstrosity.

Fire Ice Worm

Anyone here ever passed wind? I know, I know, once at Christmas in the early 80s but you decided not to do it ever again. Still, people have bacteria in their guts that help them digest food. Some people, though not all, have bacteria that release methane. Ruminants have loads of them, and it all helps in creating a most undesirable side-effect - an almighty stink.

Venus' Girdle

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this Venus woman most certainly adores beautiful things!

When lizard meets groin

This video may reduce you to tears. Of laughter! I wonder if I should say 'elevate to tears'?

Anyway, I was all on my own *sniff :(* watching it and it made me cry with laughter. This is quite an accolade because I usually need other people around to get into that state.

My only regret is that this thing has been up for over 4 years and has had over 3 million views, so I'm really late to the party. Still, it really ought to have around 18 or 21 billion views minimum. That's at least 3 for each person on the planet.

Contemplating all the things the poor guy was trying to do and trying not to do is a real delight!

Skeleton Shrimp

Image: Gail Ashton

I'm really loving crustaceans! They're so much more interesting and diverse than I had ever imagined. I now realise that I knew almost nothing about them at all!

This little chap is the Skeleton Shrimp, thus named because he looks a tad skeletal. As is so often the case, it's not an actual shrimp at all, but an amphipod.

Less common is that they are an utterly wonderful blend of the sweetly delightful and the scandalously monstrous.

Short-tailed Whip Scorpion

Image: Wikipedia

Oh dear. Scorpion. Whip Scorpion. Short-tailed Whip Scorpion. Once again the paucity of imagination when coming up with names for arachnids is shockingly evinced.

Sea Anemone

Image: Rosario Beach Marine Laboratory

Sea Anemones are named after the flowers due to their wonderful, vibrant colours. The fact that one is a predatory, stinging animal and the other is mainly just pretty serves as no bar to this whimsy.

It'a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a... Frog?

Image source

It's not just birds, bats and insects that can take to the air and soar, flitter or buzz to their heart's content. Powered flight is a wonderful achievement, and we humans have spent a huge amount of time and resources to be able to partake in its delights.

There are many other animals in the world who give flight a go. Most only reach gliding, allowing them to extend jumping distance and avoid the usual "plummet to your untimely death" consequence.

Triton vs. Crown of Thorns Starfish

Image: Jonathan Lavan, Underwater Pressure World

We looked at the vicious Crown of Thorns Starfish and its arch nemesis the Triton snail a while ago. Here we see them in battle and to make it clear, the Triton will kill and eat the starfish. In fact, that process appears to be well under way.

Giant Gippsland Earthworm

Some things in the world are just wrong. Amiss. Askew. Perverse... BAD! I think an earthworm that can stretch to over 3 metres (10 feet) in length may well be one of those.

Venus' Flower Basket

Wow! This Venus woman sure likes beautiful things! Not for her some pot made out of brown clay - her flowers are kept in a beautiful, glass, latticework affair. They're also kept in cold, dark seawater so the flowers are probably dead, but the vase is looking great!

Laetmogone violacea, A Deep Sea Sea Cucumber

Image source

I know near enough nothing at all about this creature but, somehow, I just love this gloomy picture.

Arrow Crab

Image: NOAA Photo Library via Flickr

These fellows just make me smile, I love 'em! Although I must admit that I was quite surprised at the intimidating guy on the left there! They usually remind me of Bert from Sesame Street. Then again...

Emerald Cockroach Wasp

Image: Wikipedia

Oh, wow! Look at this sexy, young thing! She's certainly gone to some effort. Look at her sparkle, catching the light and returning it to the world in a form more beautiful than she found it. Her second and third pair of legs are adorned with beautiful, orange detail, as if to draw the eye to her shapely thighs. How risqué!

It is no wonder that she is also known as the Jewel Wasp. This 'Cockroach' thing raises questions, though. Gosh, I sure hope her personality is as utterly charming as her visage! (Literary device)

Platyctenid Comb Jelly

Image: Wikipedia

We've learnt a lot about all sorts of Comb Jellies, but now it's time to look at a rebel in their ranks, the black sheep of the family. Actually it's the black sheep of the entire phylum.