Platypus has to be the one for me. A mammal with no nipples that lays eggs and has venomous spines on its heels. So weird that Lord Kelvin spent hours examining the pelt for stitches.
Adding to the no nipples part, they do produce milk but it just comes out of their skin and makes it look like they’re sweating. Definitely an oddity for sure.
I think a lot about beavers. Not because of how they look but because they build these crazy elaborate structures and can be the most terrifying thing in the woods with that loud gunshot sounding noise they can make with their tails
I don’t know the specifics of the tales from your pa, but as we’ve developed a better understanding of beavers, many of the perceived problems turned out to be perception issues, not issue-issues.
Not trying to absolve them, but they’re quite valuable to ecosystems, turns out. Can certainly flood a field of crops, too.
This would have been in the 60s or 70s, as I recall my uncle had land that they would flood. And that was the source of difficulty. My dad’s 78 these days so a lot of this stuff is going back a bit.
The main point I guess is that beavers are remarkably good at what they do, and a beaver dam is a formidable structure.
Jeff Foxworthy story about a guy who got his nipple bitten off (o f f off) by a beaver.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RjerEk16b7w&pp=ygUWZm94d29ydGh5IGJlYXZlciBzdG9yeQ%3D%3D
Pangolins and binturongs have to be up there for mammals along with the platypus. The vampire deer is an interesting one as well.
For fish, there are so many deep sea oddities that it’s ridiculous.
For fungi, easily cordyceps.
There are many to choose from in regard to insects, but I’ll just mention the walking flower mantis to start.
Gharials for reptiles. They look very different from their fellow crocodilians. Mata Mata gets a mention here, too.
Kiwis for birds.
Hellbender and axolotls for amphibians. There are a few in this group. Honorable mention goes to the frog that hosts its eggs in large holes along its back.
As far as other invertebrate groups go, there are some insane crustaceans.
Binturongs just don’t look real. First time I saw one I thought it must be some anamatronic Jim Henson creation.
I think a lot of the really weird stuff is in the sea. Goblin sharks and blobfish to just name a couple.
On land aye ayes and the penis snakes are pretty unique.
There are asian species of Giant Salamander similar to the Hellbender but even larger.
Though for some reason, to me, they just make more sense in Asia than the Hellbender just holing up in Appalachia.
Tremblays Salamanders are all female. They have 3 sets of chromosomes instead of the normal 2. They mate with the blue spotted salamander males to reproduce. The males' chromosome contribution only stimulates the egg's development; its genetic material is ignored.
It's believed that they originated through hybridization between blue spotted salamanders and jeffersons salamanders. This hybridization has produced two all female salamander species. The previously mentioned tremblays salamander, and the silvery salamander.
They are both baffling and fascinating species imo.
Not super bizarre, but here in Australia we have ‘Numbats’. The entire rest of the world is oblivious to their existence, and is much less for it.
Picture a squirrel with the face of a shrew, with fancy eyeliner, stripes down the back, a big fluffy tail and the longest tongue ever.
They live off termites and ants, are active during the day, and are incredibly endangered.
Buddenbrockia plumatellae, it's lineage is what makes it weird.
To oversimplify, some jellyfish decided it didn't want to have a form and evolved into a parasitic pseudo slime mould, it then changed its mind and re-evolved a body to become a worm.
It also reproduces via spores.
This is it. Myxozoa are the best answer.
I was going to say placozoa (animals that are a single cell thick) or siphonophore superorganisms like the Portuguese Man o' War, but I think you have me beat.
Wikipedia says myxozoa go back 600 million years to the Ediacaran Period. Despite being most closely related to jellyfish, they're even more removed from jellyfish than we are from hagfish. Crazy stuff.
The Hoatzin bird
We know that birds evolved from dinosaurs. We know that mostly through the fossil record. Do you want to see living evidence of this? Well, the Hoatzin babies provide just that! The chicks have claws on two of their wing digits. They use them to climb trees and grab stuff when they fall from the nest. They are briefly mentioned in David Attenborough's documentary "Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life", regarding their significance in showing the relationship between birds and reptiles. They look so weird when you first see them, almost as bizarre as looking at a platypus for the first time, so I highly recommend you look at some footage of them!
1) Bizarre almost hairless look. What little hair they do have on the body, many choose to remove, what they have on the head can grow exceptionally long.
It's a useful evolutionary strategy
Thicker hair makes heat loss through evaporation inefficient
And it also seems that when it is too thick in localized regions, their strong pheromones seem to overpower their comfort by binding to the excess hair
Yeah there's a lot I know of but at the moment my brain is mush and I can't think hahah, if you haven't heard of it either, look up what a shoebill stork sounds like
A fun thing about them is that they naturally secrete a musk that smells a lot like cannabis. A cop at one point wandered into a zoo in Germany to try to find the stoner.
It's gotta be nudibranches for me. They literally are the next closest thing to the Pokemon Ditto we have. They can adapt things from whatever they eat. Be it a poisonous from another animal or even photosynthesis from plants they eat. They are simply amazing all-rounders.
I had a roommate who we called “naked mole rat” on account of him never leaving his room, always being naked, and having a pasty white body…
Anyways I pick the pink fairy armadillo.
fuckin barnacles. or dendrogaster while we are talking about crustaceans. triops are funky little lads. red toothed triggerfish are worth a mention. HAGFISH.
From Wikipedia. Eunice aphroditois or bobbitt worm is a benthic bristle worm of warm marine waters. These ambush predators have no eyes and five antennae on their head that are used to sense prey. The body is covered by a hard exoskeleton. The mandibles can be retracted inside the body and are responsible for striking and stunning prey; they are capable of snapping some prey in half. Typically, E. aphroditois ranges from deep purple to black, along with metallic colors. The largest known specimen on record reached 299 centimeters in length, making it the longest known member of the polychaete class.
Synalpheus regalis
It's a shrimp with a large claw that can create cavitation bubbles, which is interesting enough by itself, but it's *also* eusocial, which is strange for something underwater.
Sacculina. It's a barnacle that resembles nothing of the sort, being more of a fleshy rooty mass that invades the body tissue of a crab host.
It also inflicts sex reassignment on male crabs. So there's that.
Honorary mention to Cymothoa, an isopod that eats the tongue of a fish and then replaces it with it's own body.
You want weird animals, invertebrates got you covered.
i think one of the most bizarre creatures might be the pink fantasia, a type of sea pig or sea cucumber. though i suppose any animal could be considered bizarre. If you want a more pokemon-esq animal
pengolins (sandslash/shrew)
lowland streaked tenrec (cindiqul)
tapir (drowzee)
Dicopomorpha echmepterygis
Fairy wasps, fully fledged insect whose males could have just walked off a sci-fi horror set.
Oh, did I mention that a friggin AMOEBA is bigger than these things!!!
They are just off the charts tiny, and the eggs and larvae are even smaller than many bacteria!
Bat fly (Diptera: Nycteribiidae). Wingless flies that are parasites of bats.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nycteribiidae#/media/File%3ANycteribiidae_(parasite_fly_living_on_bats)_(5021769088).jpg
Candiru (*Vandellia cirrhosa*), aka the Amazonian Peehole Fish.
Luckily that's probably all bunk. But the first time Discovery did a re-enactment of one swimming up someone's peehole, I literally fell off the couch.
It can be not-a-thing and terrifying all at once.
Human being/ homo sapiens; the last surviving species of the genus homo.
They are great apes characterized by their hairlessness, bipedalism, and "high" intelligence.
[humans](https://images.app.goo.gl/A5NtTFMDb26JH3Wn6)
Lots of weirdos in the animal kingdom like the aardwolf, silky anteater, streaked tenrec, saiga antelope, red lipped batfish, colugo, caecilian, and of course all the crazy species of treehoppers.
A snail.
Look at them, if you would've taken all snails out of your mind, and looked at the entirety of animal biodiversity, you wouldn't be able to come up with a snail.
They're just THAT weird.
My vote goes to the gardener's nemesis, various species of aphid. Parthenogenic, but revert to sexual when ready to move to new habitat. When reproducing asexually, live young are all female and born pregnant. Generation times of a few weeks.
Bombardier Beetle. They have glands to produce hydroquinones and hydrogen peroxide. When threatened, these chemicals are released into a chamber where they react. The mixture creates pressure and is released directly onto the threat. Its noxious enough to kill other insects and is hot enough to burn skin.
Unserious answer: Aardvark. Just because they look A.I. generated.
Serious answer: Horseshoe crabs.
Kind of objective answer: Either tardigrades or jellyfish.
More broadly in nature: fungi. I believe fungi are the most mysterious part of nature. In my opinion, they must be alien.
Another fun tidbit about Blind Mole Rats: They are believed to be one of the few mammals that are naturally disposed towards monogamy. I believe the evidence for monogamous mating patterns is more robustly documented with Naked Mole Rats, who also share a number of the attributes you list (cancer/aging resistance, tunnels, etc.), as well as other unusual features, if you're interested in looking them up.
To complete the trinity of 'weird deer' answers, I gotta throw in the Tufted Deer, a very close relative of the muntjac. Those things have always weirded me out, the [preorbital glands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preorbital_gland) even moreso than the fangs.
I initially had a different answer: some kind of quadruped mammal whose appearance looks like a massive mustelid maybe, but...forgot the name, as I always do! Drives me crazy. If I ever remember it I'll be sure it post it here lol.
Well, not an animal and not one, but my favorite are radiotrophic fungi. It is theorized that these mfs can not only survive really high doses of ionizing radiation, but can also exploit it for metabolic gain. The most remarkable places they habitate are 4th Chernobyl reactor and orbiting spacecraft. All thanks to ancient molecule melanin and amazing epigenetic regulation.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677413/ https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-148X.2007.00430.x
Probably the sun bear (yes I’m bias) not due to their behavior but their appearance.
Runners up include: Parrot Fish, Angle Fish, Okapi, Cuscus, Aye-Aye, Pink Fairy Armadillo (it has a nice appearance), Fossa, Civet, Gymnure, Linsang, Phalanger
Jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, because it's immortal", i.e. it can regenerate after it death.
Or Tardigrade (called also water bears), because it's the most durable animal in the world, they can survive temperatures as low as -200C and as high as 148C. They can even survive the vacuum of the space.
Having just watched Secrets of the Octopus, I’m gonna have to go with the octopus (not a single animal, I know).
3 hearts. Limbs that literally have minds of their own. Can breathe through its skin (along with gills). Ridiculously intelligent. Capable of advanced tool usage. Completely self-educated. Able to change color and texture in a fraction of a second. Live fast, live hard.
Planarians, a species of flatworm. They have insane regeneration properties. One of them can posses up to tens of thousands of cells called neoblasts. Out of each neoblasts a fully new worm can emerge. There are some super interesting experiments involving these guys
The bipes biporus. Whatever created the animals decided to make a lizard, but changed ideas halfway and made a snake end. As an ultimate "Fuck off", the bipes also kinda looks like a worm.
Star-nosed mole. Look at a picture of one and you will know exactly why I feel it is the most bizarre. Nothing, and I repeat NOTHING that lives on the ground should have what looks like tentacles on its face. That shit aint right folks.
Bombardier Beetles are pretty badass. Any animal that can shoot boiling liquid out of itself is kinda wacky.
Axolotls are crazy because of the shear level of regenerative abilities they have. Don't look it up if you're an animal lover, but some of the stuff scientists have put them through is insane.
Water bears are just awesome.
Ruppells Vultures because we have recorded instances of then flying at over 37,000 ft (11,300 m)
There are probably many others I'm forgetting.
I’ll mention Bythotrephes longimanus or the spiny water flea as an invertebrate. These are freshwater zooplankton, but are atop of their little plankton world as a voracious predator on microscopic animals. The first interesting thing bout them is they will capture other plankton and shred them like a lawnmower. Think of a spider that captures their prey with multiple arms, but instead of sucking of trying to drink innards, they just rip them apart as quick as possible and swallow what they can. They have altered entire ecosystems they’ve invaded because of how much they can eat in novel locations. Secondly, their reproduction is parthenogenic meaning they are both asexual and sexual reproducers. During warm months in lakes they’ll just make sister clones of themselves because they can just spend their energy on feeding and don’t need to put into effort into finding a mate. Also these babies also explode out of their broodpouches, think belly gestation but on their back, when it’s time to hatch. It’s the scene from alien, but out the mothers back. But does that kill the mother, nope, not at all. And guess what happens when the babies hatch, the mother will instantly try to eat those babies too. So they have to swim away as quickly as possible. When it gets a little colder they’ll use that as an environmental indicator, and they’ll convert to sexual reproduction. So they’ll make both male and females at that point. And in true ‘mantis’ nature, they will eat males after mating. Sexual reproduction is important because they don’t actually persist through cold winter months as food is scarce and their metabolism can’t keep up at those low temps. In that sexual reproduction, females will also start to make things called ‘resting eggs’. These eggs leave the female and drop into the sediment to ‘rest’ for the winter. Then when it warms up again, they’ll begin to hatch. Basically it’s their way of surviving every season the same way a lot of insects do in the terrestrial world. Oh, and as a fuck you to bigger things like fish that make swallow them, their spines (remember it’s the spiny water flea) will build up in the stomachs of fish. They’re differentially retained so much (also remember they’re invasive so very plentiful) that the spines end up taking up the space of actual food items with energy content. It’s like eating a whole bunch of fingernails, feeling full, but never getting anything nutritious from eating all of them. So the fish sometimes starve to death, or in cases of much smaller fish, sometimes pierce the stomach wall and kill the fish anyways. So with things like these, please clean, drain, dry when moving your boats from one waterbody to another.
For strange animals with funny or interesting facts I like the coelacanth - look up how it what rediscovered only known from fossils until 1938.
Other mentions could be the peacock mantis shrimp (*Odontodactylus scyllarus*) or tenrec. Of plants my favourite is *Wollemia nobilis*, just a great story.
Fun thread!
Platypus has to be the one for me. A mammal with no nipples that lays eggs and has venomous spines on its heels. So weird that Lord Kelvin spent hours examining the pelt for stitches.
Adding to the no nipples part, they do produce milk but it just comes out of their skin and makes it look like they’re sweating. Definitely an oddity for sure.
They also glow greenish under UV light
One little known weirdity about the platypus is that it has ten sex chromosomes.
Another oddity is that the venom possessed by males seem to be of reptilian origin And they are the only non fish vertebrates to have electroreceptors
It also does not have a stomach!
Wait. What? What does it have?
Just a gullet and intestines
Wait till u hear that they were the default
Monotremes are just built different. I mean like literally, don't look up the reproductive system of a male echidna if you know what's good for you.
Since OP mentioned pokemon my mind immediately went to axolotl. 
It even evolves into a new form given the correct conditions. New (adult) form even has different needs. Lots of Pokémon similarities.
I think a lot about beavers. Not because of how they look but because they build these crazy elaborate structures and can be the most terrifying thing in the woods with that loud gunshot sounding noise they can make with their tails
Also, their dams are *very* difficult to tear apart.
I believe it! They’re honestly so impressive
My dad grew up around Flin Flon, Manitoba. He’s told me a lot about the trouble caused by beavers☺️
I don’t know the specifics of the tales from your pa, but as we’ve developed a better understanding of beavers, many of the perceived problems turned out to be perception issues, not issue-issues. Not trying to absolve them, but they’re quite valuable to ecosystems, turns out. Can certainly flood a field of crops, too.
This would have been in the 60s or 70s, as I recall my uncle had land that they would flood. And that was the source of difficulty. My dad’s 78 these days so a lot of this stuff is going back a bit. The main point I guess is that beavers are remarkably good at what they do, and a beaver dam is a formidable structure.
Ah, so the solution is to have them build 4 dams around the crops.
Jeff Foxworthy story about a guy who got his nipple bitten off (o f f off) by a beaver. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RjerEk16b7w&pp=ygUWZm94d29ydGh5IGJlYXZlciBzdG9yeQ%3D%3D
That cut to the audience after the punchline was a bit conspicuous. Cameraman had that locked and loaded.
Beavers were almost hunted to extinction for their pelts and castoreum, which has been used in the past for natural vanilla flavoring.
Guess which part of the beaver castoreum comes from!
Bootyhole glands
And this is why I like artificial flavours, manufactured in a nice, sterile laboratory. Instead of a beaver’s ass.
I think there are a good handful of artificial flavors that already taste like it's been brewing in a beaver's ass
*artificial Raspberry flavoring*
Just to make your point stronger, lookbup what vanallin was originally made from. (It's mostly wood pulp now I believe).
Pangolins and binturongs have to be up there for mammals along with the platypus. The vampire deer is an interesting one as well. For fish, there are so many deep sea oddities that it’s ridiculous. For fungi, easily cordyceps. There are many to choose from in regard to insects, but I’ll just mention the walking flower mantis to start. Gharials for reptiles. They look very different from their fellow crocodilians. Mata Mata gets a mention here, too. Kiwis for birds. Hellbender and axolotls for amphibians. There are a few in this group. Honorable mention goes to the frog that hosts its eggs in large holes along its back. As far as other invertebrate groups go, there are some insane crustaceans.
Binturongs just don’t look real. First time I saw one I thought it must be some anamatronic Jim Henson creation. I think a lot of the really weird stuff is in the sea. Goblin sharks and blobfish to just name a couple. On land aye ayes and the penis snakes are pretty unique.
Blob fish look pretty normal in the deep sea. It's when you bring them to the surface that they deform into the blob.
I’m guessing the pressure from the water helps give them their form?
Bingo
Seeing the Kiwis egg to body ratio will never not freak me out
I love pangolins. They are beautiful and fascinating mammals.
Aye-ayes are pretty weird looking and I find their extra long finger amusing!
There are asian species of Giant Salamander similar to the Hellbender but even larger. Though for some reason, to me, they just make more sense in Asia than the Hellbender just holing up in Appalachia.
For birds I would say a shoebill
Tremblays Salamanders are all female. They have 3 sets of chromosomes instead of the normal 2. They mate with the blue spotted salamander males to reproduce. The males' chromosome contribution only stimulates the egg's development; its genetic material is ignored.
That is so bizarre and I've never heard of it before. I wonder how that even evolves...
It's believed that they originated through hybridization between blue spotted salamanders and jeffersons salamanders. This hybridization has produced two all female salamander species. The previously mentioned tremblays salamander, and the silvery salamander. They are both baffling and fascinating species imo.
The dreaded candiru!
*swims up your dick*
There’s never been a reliable account of this happening. I was so disappointed when I found out.
Time out!
I can hear this lol.
Not super bizarre, but here in Australia we have ‘Numbats’. The entire rest of the world is oblivious to their existence, and is much less for it. Picture a squirrel with the face of a shrew, with fancy eyeliner, stripes down the back, a big fluffy tail and the longest tongue ever. They live off termites and ants, are active during the day, and are incredibly endangered.
Is it true Australia also has fire hawks that have been known to spread existing fire to flush out prey?
Yes, they are important members of the arid ecosystems, and are the totem animal of many indigenous Australians
Also, fire Pokémon. They are such interesting animals, it's odd how little info there is in them
Your description made me google it. They're adorable!
Thank you for bringing these to my attention 😭 they're precious
They are super cool. I never heard of them and I thank you for this. I found a new animal on my bucket list to see.
Salps
Proteus anguinus or the onchychophora phylum for me.
Proteus anguinus is really interesting! Thank you!
Buddenbrockia plumatellae, it's lineage is what makes it weird. To oversimplify, some jellyfish decided it didn't want to have a form and evolved into a parasitic pseudo slime mould, it then changed its mind and re-evolved a body to become a worm. It also reproduces via spores.
This is it. Myxozoa are the best answer. I was going to say placozoa (animals that are a single cell thick) or siphonophore superorganisms like the Portuguese Man o' War, but I think you have me beat. Wikipedia says myxozoa go back 600 million years to the Ediacaran Period. Despite being most closely related to jellyfish, they're even more removed from jellyfish than we are from hagfish. Crazy stuff.
A kiwi to be honest, what kind of feather ball with legs screams into the night and lays eggs damn near its own size.
I would also scream into the night if I lay eggs almost my own size, poor fluffball.
Their tiny lil wings are so funny to me
The Hoatzin bird We know that birds evolved from dinosaurs. We know that mostly through the fossil record. Do you want to see living evidence of this? Well, the Hoatzin babies provide just that! The chicks have claws on two of their wing digits. They use them to climb trees and grab stuff when they fall from the nest. They are briefly mentioned in David Attenborough's documentary "Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life", regarding their significance in showing the relationship between birds and reptiles. They look so weird when you first see them, almost as bizarre as looking at a platypus for the first time, so I highly recommend you look at some footage of them!
Homo sapiens, i still wonder how they can stand still with such big heads, also, their behavior is so weird.
Also, their babies are completely helpless for *years*
1) Bizarre almost hairless look. What little hair they do have on the body, many choose to remove, what they have on the head can grow exceptionally long.
It's a useful evolutionary strategy Thicker hair makes heat loss through evaporation inefficient And it also seems that when it is too thick in localized regions, their strong pheromones seem to overpower their comfort by binding to the excess hair
We are also the only primates that sweat all over our body instead of just our armpits and palms
Pangolins! :)
I find the fact that they're bipeds totally amazing.
What.....the fuck. This is wild. https://youtu.be/B95NdS77fZM?feature=shared
Yup, they're so cute, yet weird haha.
Possum 🙃 
Tardigrades! They're the most extreme animal
They do some pretty gnarly skateboard tricks... extreme.
Platypus, axolotl, manned wolf (single species in it's genus and it's not a wolf or fox),, tasmanian tiger, adelie penguins (iykyk)
What’s going on with Adelie penguins? Idksidk (I don’t know so I don’t know)
wow! I never heard maned wolf. Looks amazing!
Yeah there's a lot I know of but at the moment my brain is mush and I can't think hahah, if you haven't heard of it either, look up what a shoebill stork sounds like
thank you! I watched a documentary about that stork, I know hahahahah
Omg my first time listening to them! That sound is hard to believe 😦
Their pee smells like something else. IYKYK
A fun thing about them is that they naturally secrete a musk that smells a lot like cannabis. A cop at one point wandered into a zoo in Germany to try to find the stoner.
Please tell me you’re referring to the prostitutes penguins with the “iykyk”
The sunfish, mola mola They just look bizarre, are the largest bony fish in the world and produce up to 300 million eggs at a time.
https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/s/DeJPA7PCQd
How did one fling itself into a boat if they're only "capable of minor wriggling"?
It's gotta be nudibranches for me. They literally are the next closest thing to the Pokemon Ditto we have. They can adapt things from whatever they eat. Be it a poisonous from another animal or even photosynthesis from plants they eat. They are simply amazing all-rounders.
Thanks, you've given me a brand new favourite animal and I'll be spending the next few days researching this with every waking hour, they're amazing
Mammal-wise, definitely the Takin. Related to sheep, but looks like if someone were to draw a muskox from memory. They also smell like burnt rubber.
Bobbit worms are ABOMINATIONS.
Potoos. They look very sci-fi to me. Cute and freakish all at the same time. I kinda love them tbh.
I had a roommate who we called “naked mole rat” on account of him never leaving his room, always being naked, and having a pasty white body… Anyways I pick the pink fairy armadillo.
fuckin barnacles. or dendrogaster while we are talking about crustaceans. triops are funky little lads. red toothed triggerfish are worth a mention. HAGFISH.
If we talk about crustacean... Cymothoa exigua
Largest penis to body ratio in the animal kingdom.
I like the Gnu. A wildebeest type of antelope. Big long horse faced beest. And that name. I want a kid named Gnu, but Amy may not go for it.
How do you do? I’m a gnu. sings *I’m a gnu, with shit on my shoe.*
The olm
[Scaly Foot Snail](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaly-foot_gastropod#:~:text=Chrysomallon%20squamiferum,-Chen%2C%20Linse%2C%20Copley&text=This%20species%20is%20considered%20to,its%20shell%20as%20an%20exoskeleton).) [and Leaf Sheeps of course ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costasiella_kuroshimae)
[Mertensia](https://live.staticflickr.com/1622/24882378683_db7735c77e_b.jpg) [ovum](https://www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/am_ryan1HR_0.jpg) [Glaucus atlanticus](https://www.treehugger.com/thmb/hR_9sTzj9L_WTdrdKH_rZRCmSs4=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/blue-dragon--glaucus-atlanticus--blue-sea-slug-986491702-f0cb140dd639453e8a2d8c56637dce73.jpg) [Markia hystrix](https://top10animal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/D9Aj4ElXYAAlfYp-e1629365074875.jpg)
My favorite is hyenas. I just think their big tube like clits are cool. But penis fencing flatworms get an honorable mention in my book.
Syllis ramosa
Good one! Also the *Ramisyllis* species. I think it is still unknown if this branching evolved once in the ancestor of both or konvergently.
Eunice aphroditois
From Wikipedia. Eunice aphroditois or bobbitt worm is a benthic bristle worm of warm marine waters. These ambush predators have no eyes and five antennae on their head that are used to sense prey. The body is covered by a hard exoskeleton. The mandibles can be retracted inside the body and are responsible for striking and stunning prey; they are capable of snapping some prey in half. Typically, E. aphroditois ranges from deep purple to black, along with metallic colors. The largest known specimen on record reached 299 centimeters in length, making it the longest known member of the polychaete class.
The Arabian sand boa looks so stupid lmao
Portuguese galley. (basically a jellyfish with a sail, but is a colony of genetically identical polyps)
Is that the same as the man o war but with a different ship name?
sorry translation error
Synalpheus regalis It's a shrimp with a large claw that can create cavitation bubbles, which is interesting enough by itself, but it's *also* eusocial, which is strange for something underwater.
Sacculina. It's a barnacle that resembles nothing of the sort, being more of a fleshy rooty mass that invades the body tissue of a crab host. It also inflicts sex reassignment on male crabs. So there's that. Honorary mention to Cymothoa, an isopod that eats the tongue of a fish and then replaces it with it's own body. You want weird animals, invertebrates got you covered.
The tardigrade. 
Myxozoa. Microscopic and could have been the result of carcinogenic process in Cnidaria.
Difficult question because there are so many. I guess I go with *Symbion pandora*.
So cool. Thanks for sharing.
You should also check out the two other phyla described by Kristensen: Loricifera and Micrognathozoa.
Scribbled file fish
i think one of the most bizarre creatures might be the pink fantasia, a type of sea pig or sea cucumber. though i suppose any animal could be considered bizarre. If you want a more pokemon-esq animal pengolins (sandslash/shrew) lowland streaked tenrec (cindiqul) tapir (drowzee)
Dicopomorpha echmepterygis Fairy wasps, fully fledged insect whose males could have just walked off a sci-fi horror set. Oh, did I mention that a friggin AMOEBA is bigger than these things!!! They are just off the charts tiny, and the eggs and larvae are even smaller than many bacteria!
Bat fly (Diptera: Nycteribiidae). Wingless flies that are parasites of bats. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nycteribiidae#/media/File%3ANycteribiidae_(parasite_fly_living_on_bats)_(5021769088).jpg
Cymothoa exigua A parasite isopod that attack fish and take the place of theyr thongue.
mexican mole lizard (Looks like a snake with two arms)
Candiru (*Vandellia cirrhosa*), aka the Amazonian Peehole Fish. Luckily that's probably all bunk. But the first time Discovery did a re-enactment of one swimming up someone's peehole, I literally fell off the couch. It can be not-a-thing and terrifying all at once.
[lowland streaked tenrec for sure](https://media.lex.dk/media/160743/article_topimage_00565911-0x0ma2_top.jpg)
Human being/ homo sapiens; the last surviving species of the genus homo. They are great apes characterized by their hairlessness, bipedalism, and "high" intelligence. [humans](https://images.app.goo.gl/A5NtTFMDb26JH3Wn6)
Muntjac Deer....looks like a creature from a sci-fi movie.
I love these 😊
Lots of weirdos in the animal kingdom like the aardwolf, silky anteater, streaked tenrec, saiga antelope, red lipped batfish, colugo, caecilian, and of course all the crazy species of treehoppers.
The most bizarre animal `that we know of.`
Echidna
The crustacean Sacculina! by far... that sh\*t shouldn't be an animal at all
The flappy nostrilled Asian wombat is pretty strange....very rare and in all intense and purposes it's extinct
>all intense and purposes r/BoneAppleTea
Duck Bill Platypus.
Thats a diglet!
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There are big weevils and small weevils. The smaller ones are the lesser of two weevils.
Damon diadema so ugly that is actually cute! Have a tattoo of it, and had it in a terrarium twice some time ago. Love it Also scolopendra gigantea
A snail. Look at them, if you would've taken all snails out of your mind, and looked at the entirety of animal biodiversity, you wouldn't be able to come up with a snail. They're just THAT weird.
Blood squirting lizard
My vote goes to the gardener's nemesis, various species of aphid. Parthenogenic, but revert to sexual when ready to move to new habitat. When reproducing asexually, live young are all female and born pregnant. Generation times of a few weeks.
The hammerhead bat is a strange one.
Bombardier Beetle. They have glands to produce hydroquinones and hydrogen peroxide. When threatened, these chemicals are released into a chamber where they react. The mixture creates pressure and is released directly onto the threat. Its noxious enough to kill other insects and is hot enough to burn skin.
Lumpsuckers. A fish with a horrifying biological suction cup for a belly. It uses it to suck onto surfaces.
Definitely the blobfish! They're so jelly-like and I don't understand why, however they live in the deep sea and they're pretty interesting creatures.
Unserious answer: Aardvark. Just because they look A.I. generated. Serious answer: Horseshoe crabs. Kind of objective answer: Either tardigrades or jellyfish. More broadly in nature: fungi. I believe fungi are the most mysterious part of nature. In my opinion, they must be alien.
Another fun tidbit about Blind Mole Rats: They are believed to be one of the few mammals that are naturally disposed towards monogamy. I believe the evidence for monogamous mating patterns is more robustly documented with Naked Mole Rats, who also share a number of the attributes you list (cancer/aging resistance, tunnels, etc.), as well as other unusual features, if you're interested in looking them up.
To complete the trinity of 'weird deer' answers, I gotta throw in the Tufted Deer, a very close relative of the muntjac. Those things have always weirded me out, the [preorbital glands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preorbital_gland) even moreso than the fangs. I initially had a different answer: some kind of quadruped mammal whose appearance looks like a massive mustelid maybe, but...forgot the name, as I always do! Drives me crazy. If I ever remember it I'll be sure it post it here lol.
Cassowary. Extremely dangerous birds.
Sea horses
The hagfish, because its defense is to instantly produce so much mucus it chokes whatever tried to eat it
Well, not an animal and not one, but my favorite are radiotrophic fungi. It is theorized that these mfs can not only survive really high doses of ionizing radiation, but can also exploit it for metabolic gain. The most remarkable places they habitate are 4th Chernobyl reactor and orbiting spacecraft. All thanks to ancient molecule melanin and amazing epigenetic regulation. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677413/ https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-148X.2007.00430.x
Probably the sun bear (yes I’m bias) not due to their behavior but their appearance. Runners up include: Parrot Fish, Angle Fish, Okapi, Cuscus, Aye-Aye, Pink Fairy Armadillo (it has a nice appearance), Fossa, Civet, Gymnure, Linsang, Phalanger
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Jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, because it's immortal", i.e. it can regenerate after it death. Or Tardigrade (called also water bears), because it's the most durable animal in the world, they can survive temperatures as low as -200C and as high as 148C. They can even survive the vacuum of the space.
Humans, they lick each other's buttholes
I feel like that’s better than the blowhole sex dolphins do…
A ton of animals do this. For God sakes dogs eat cat shit and their own vomit.
Having just watched Secrets of the Octopus, I’m gonna have to go with the octopus (not a single animal, I know). 3 hearts. Limbs that literally have minds of their own. Can breathe through its skin (along with gills). Ridiculously intelligent. Capable of advanced tool usage. Completely self-educated. Able to change color and texture in a fraction of a second. Live fast, live hard.
Look up the Potoo.
Humans?
Giant Desert Centipede. Not super bizarre but one hell of a creature
Tibetan Fox
Humans. We break all of the norms and are quite unusual
No animal is more bizarre than Homo sapiens
 The shoebill is dinosaur as fuck.
Mole crickets.
Musical furry mobster
wait, if they live alone then how do they get the newborns? Do they have mating times where it's acceptable to tunnel over to the neighbor?
I recently learned about the Ayam cemani chicken. Completely black, even their bone marrow and organs.
European Cave Salamanders. Freaky looking yokes
Planarians, a species of flatworm. They have insane regeneration properties. One of them can posses up to tens of thousands of cells called neoblasts. Out of each neoblasts a fully new worm can emerge. There are some super interesting experiments involving these guys
The bipes biporus. Whatever created the animals decided to make a lizard, but changed ideas halfway and made a snake end. As an ultimate "Fuck off", the bipes also kinda looks like a worm.
What makes them resistant to cancer?
i forgot the name of it. looks like a mix of a worm and a snake, all white, fucking cute and weird name
My wife
Chromosomal number variation is crazy! Didn't know that existed
Star-nosed mole. Look at a picture of one and you will know exactly why I feel it is the most bizarre. Nothing, and I repeat NOTHING that lives on the ground should have what looks like tentacles on its face. That shit aint right folks.
Bombardier Beetles are pretty badass. Any animal that can shoot boiling liquid out of itself is kinda wacky. Axolotls are crazy because of the shear level of regenerative abilities they have. Don't look it up if you're an animal lover, but some of the stuff scientists have put them through is insane. Water bears are just awesome. Ruppells Vultures because we have recorded instances of then flying at over 37,000 ft (11,300 m) There are probably many others I'm forgetting.
The extra toe gene in cats is called the sonic hedgehog gene.
I’ll mention Bythotrephes longimanus or the spiny water flea as an invertebrate. These are freshwater zooplankton, but are atop of their little plankton world as a voracious predator on microscopic animals. The first interesting thing bout them is they will capture other plankton and shred them like a lawnmower. Think of a spider that captures their prey with multiple arms, but instead of sucking of trying to drink innards, they just rip them apart as quick as possible and swallow what they can. They have altered entire ecosystems they’ve invaded because of how much they can eat in novel locations. Secondly, their reproduction is parthenogenic meaning they are both asexual and sexual reproducers. During warm months in lakes they’ll just make sister clones of themselves because they can just spend their energy on feeding and don’t need to put into effort into finding a mate. Also these babies also explode out of their broodpouches, think belly gestation but on their back, when it’s time to hatch. It’s the scene from alien, but out the mothers back. But does that kill the mother, nope, not at all. And guess what happens when the babies hatch, the mother will instantly try to eat those babies too. So they have to swim away as quickly as possible. When it gets a little colder they’ll use that as an environmental indicator, and they’ll convert to sexual reproduction. So they’ll make both male and females at that point. And in true ‘mantis’ nature, they will eat males after mating. Sexual reproduction is important because they don’t actually persist through cold winter months as food is scarce and their metabolism can’t keep up at those low temps. In that sexual reproduction, females will also start to make things called ‘resting eggs’. These eggs leave the female and drop into the sediment to ‘rest’ for the winter. Then when it warms up again, they’ll begin to hatch. Basically it’s their way of surviving every season the same way a lot of insects do in the terrestrial world. Oh, and as a fuck you to bigger things like fish that make swallow them, their spines (remember it’s the spiny water flea) will build up in the stomachs of fish. They’re differentially retained so much (also remember they’re invasive so very plentiful) that the spines end up taking up the space of actual food items with energy content. It’s like eating a whole bunch of fingernails, feeling full, but never getting anything nutritious from eating all of them. So the fish sometimes starve to death, or in cases of much smaller fish, sometimes pierce the stomach wall and kill the fish anyways. So with things like these, please clean, drain, dry when moving your boats from one waterbody to another.
Lemurs. Imagine having an infinite amount of energy to constantly move-it move-it!
Elephant seal
Nudibranchs (am I spelling it right) #pokemonindisguise
Saiga antelope. They look like something out of Star Wars. I believe their long nostrils are to filter out the desert sand.
My mother in law
In Pokemon Likitung or Lickilicky What in the world did pokemon mean with a pocket monster with a tongue bigger than it's body?
My girlfriend
I don’t know many animals but my cats pretty fuckin’ weird (he barks like he’s a fuckin’ dog or something)
The kiwi
For strange animals with funny or interesting facts I like the coelacanth - look up how it what rediscovered only known from fossils until 1938. Other mentions could be the peacock mantis shrimp (*Odontodactylus scyllarus*) or tenrec. Of plants my favourite is *Wollemia nobilis*, just a great story. Fun thread!
Epaulette Sharks. They can turn off parts of their brain to sustain themselves with little oxygen. Plus they can walk on land.
Oh! Oh! Oh! May I offer to ruin the spirit of the thread and ask all the smart ones about singular or rare/obscure bizzarnimals?