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The Ungodly Creatures Thread

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Melchiah

Melchiah

Member
That bird looks f**cking weird, evil and hilarious!

2289748-md.jpg

shoebill_standing-web_-_october_2009.jpg

SHOEBILL2.jpg

3846179242_fe693f141e.jpg

10_a3dad7d700d5a62b95dc5fb60950b431.jpg
 
S

subzero9285

Banned
The Ichneumonoidea, insects that even Charles Darwin was repulsed by, they're mentioned in the Origin of Species a few times.

ichneumon.jpg


Behaviour
They are solitary insects, and most are parasitoids—the larvae feeding on or in another insect which finally dies. As with all hymenopterans, ichneumons are closely related to ants and bees. Many species in both families utilize polydnaviruses to suppress the immune system of the host insect. Females find a host and lay an egg on, near, or inside the host's body. Upon hatching, the larval ichneumon feeds either externally or internally, killing the host when they themselves are ready to pupate.
Click to expand...

David Attenborough details the Ichneumon Wasp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkhrPoZAgJs
 
D

Dead Man

Member
subzero9285 said:
Everyone's heard of Venus flytraps, I think they qualify as 'Ungodly Creatures'.

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd138/subzero9285/Sub/VF.png[IMG]

This from the latest clip of Life.

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7eQKSf0LmY[/url]

This is from David Attenborough's Private Life of Plants.

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktIGVtKdgwo[/url]

On side note; it's interesting to see how nature series have evolved in the past few years.[/QUOTE]
Carnivorous plants are fascinating, such a clever adaptation.
Click to expand...
 
B

bigswords

Member
Melchiah said:
That bird looks f**cking weird, evil and hilarious!

2289748-md.jpg

IMG]http://www.african-parks.org/apffoundation/images/stories/bangweulu_wetlands/shoebill_standing-web_-_october_2009.jpg[/IMG]
IMG]http://www.birdholidays.co.uk/SHOEBILL2.jpg[/IMG]
IMG]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2125/3846179242_fe693f141e.jpg[/IMG]
IMG]http://www.zoonar.com/img/www_repository2/61/24/90/10_a3dad7d700d5a62b95dc5fb60950b431.jpg[/IMG]
Click to expand...


IT"S A KU KUT!!!!! MONSTER HUNTERS UNITE !!!


YianKutKu.png
 
L

linkboy

Member
falconzss said:
this one is probably more "godly" but since there exits no such a thread i'll post it here.
haven't seen it being posted so here i go...

Turritopsis nutricula

2ms0iv4.jpg


Turritopsis nutricula is a hydrozoan with a life cycle in which it reverts to the polyp stage after becoming sexually mature. It is the only known case of a metazoan capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual maturity as a solitary stage. It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation. Theoretically, this cycle can repeat indefinitely, rendering it biologically immortal until its nerve center is removed from the rest of the body.

Biological immortality

Jellyfish usually die after propagating; however, the Turritopsis nutricula has developed the ability to return to a polyp state. This is done through a cell change in the external screen (exumbrella). The cells revert to a different state. The medusa is transformed into a stolon and the polyps into a hydroid colony. The umbrella turns inside out; middle section and tentacles are reabsorbed before the polyp spawns. Stolons form two days before the polyps differentiate. The ability to reverse the life cycle is probably unique in the animal kingdom, and allows the jellyfish to bypass death, rendering the Turritopsis nutricula biologically immortal. Laboratory tests showed that 100% of specimens reverted to the polyp stage.

source: Wikipedia

watch
(no actual jellyfish footage, just talk)
Click to expand...

This is hands down one of, if not, the coolest things I've ever read on the net.

So let me see if I understand this correctly. Its juvenile state is a polyp, it matures into its adult form and then returns back to its juvenile form.

That's amazing.

God, this planet is amazing. Just when you think you've seen everything, it throws a curveball like that.

And the shoebill, which I've just seen for the first time in this thread, is one of my favorite animals on this planet. That bird is 100% awesome.

Also, if you don't think dinosaurs and birds are related in some way, look at that bird and you should change your mind.
 
D

Des0lar

will learn eventually
This thread needs a good ol' bump, that's what it needs! I want to see more!

Just keep those stupid maggot gifs away please. :puke
 
N

Neuromancer

Member
No pictures but... I once did a search warrant at a house that was infested by cockroaches. They literally covered every surface of the house and were not afraid of being seen. As I carried a computer out of the house, roaches were running out of it and up my arms.

Also, upstairs there was a bowl of milk with maggots in it.

Let me tell you, there is no shower in the world that can make you feel better after being in a place like that.
 
S

subzero9285

Banned
An interesting insight into our favourite deep sea creatures.

Beyond.jpg


It is pitch black, icy cold and the pressure is phenomenal. The deepest parts of the ocean are some of the least hospitable places on Earth - yet footage from recent expeditions reveals that life in the oceanic trenches is thriving. Click on the images below to see the remarkable creatures of the deep.

Our fascination with the deepest of the deep was sparked by an extraordinarily dangerous expedition that took place 50 years ago. On 23 January, 1960, the bathyscaphe Trieste propelled Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh to the bottom of Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, which at more than 10,900m (35,800ft) down is the deepest spot in the ocean. They were the first - and even now, the only - humans to have experienced these depths.

With the vessel creaking and groaning under an immense 1,100 bars of pressure - the equivalent of having several dozen jumbo jets piled on top of you, the explorers stayed at the bottom for 20 minutes before they began their risky ascent back to the surface. But as they neared the ocean floor, instead of finding a barren desert, devoid of life, the explorers say they spotted a fish swimming past.

Captain Don Walsh told the BBC: "The flatfish was seen just before we landed and the water clarity was still good. "I would guess that it was less than a metre away. Jacques was at the viewport and I was looking at our fathometer calling off our height above the bottom when he saw the bottom and the fish."

The sighting suggested that even this most remote spot was habitable - and the hunt was now on for life in this mysterious underwater world. The oceanic trenches - and there are 37 around the world, with the deepest found in the Pacific Ocean - are profound, narrow canyons in the sea floor. They sit beyond the abyss, which covers a mere 3,000-6,000m (10,000-20,000ft) below sea level, and are positioned in the hadal zone, which plummets to 11,000m (36,000ft).

The fact that life can exist here is not as unlikely as it first seems.

Professor Paul Tyler from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK, explains: "The thing is animals adapt. "OK, we think it is a highly hostile environment, but the animals living down there have most likely slowly penetrated the deep sea over millions and millions of years and have adapted to the pressure." And many trenches contain an abundant food supply, especially those close to the coast. Organic matter drifts into the depressions, sinking to the bottom, contained by the steep sides.

But while scientists knew that fauna could survive here - and early trawling expeditions, during which dredges were towed across the ocean floor to collect a smattering of creatures, gave some idea of a trench's biology - a broader picture of deep-sea life has only emerged more recently. Monty Priede, director of the University of Aberdeen's Oceanlab, says: "With new technology there is a renewed interest in the hadal zones."

Not only is it easier to put together submersibles that can withstand high pressures, he explains, satellite navigation has also made it simple to pinpoint the spots in the trenches that you want to study. Professor Priede says: "If you go back to the 60s and 70s, you only knew roughly within a mile or so of where you were in the middle of the ocean.

"But with modern navigation, a ship can move within an accuracy of 10m (30ft) and we can send down a remotely operated vehicle and you know exactly where it is." Over the past few years, the Hadeep team at Oceanlab has been exploring trenches around the world using an underwater vehicle built to withstand the extreme conditions of these chasms.

The pyramid-shaped Hadal-Lander has high-resolution camera equipment encased in a titanium body with sapphire windows. Dr Alan Jamieson, from Oceanlab, who designed the vehicle, says: "The lander is lowered from the ship and freefalls, sinking to the bottom. To get it back up, you send an acoustic command, and it drops weights and shoots to the surface."

Once resting on the seabed, animals are lured over by some smelly fish bait, allowing the team to film them as they feed. Dr Jamieson says: "The principles are simple, but the technology is not."

The Hadeep team has captured some remarkable video footage of creatures living at different depths in various trenches. They have filmed fish called rat-tails that measure 0.5m-long (1.6ft), shrimp-like creatures called amphipods, which swarm in increasingly large groups the deeper you go, as well as a shoal of snail fish swimming at 7,700m (25,300ft) down in the Japan Trench - the deepest fish to be caught on camera. The marine life looks less strange than you might expect - not that different to creatures that live at much shallower depths.

Dr Jamieson explains: "It's the fish that live at about 1,000m deep in the mid-water that are really strange. "They don't live on the surface or sea floor - which is why they have such incredible adaptations. The populations are so low that if you are going to eat something, you have to make sure you get it right first time because you won't get another chance."

Professor Priede adds that the main advantage of filming the animals is that it gives the team a chance to observe the behaviour. "The main thing is that we can see animals in context. If you put down the dredge, you'd have no idea of where it was, how deep it was, and you brought up fragments of animals," he explains.

"Now we've been able to see that the fish are eating amphipods, and we get an idea of how fast they are moving and so on."

Other animals that have been spotted in the deep include starfish, sea cucumbers and worms, as well as much smaller creatures, including the single-celled protozoa and foraminifera. "It's an eclectic mix of life," adds Dr Jamieson.

The recent boost in deep-sea research has revealed that many trenches contain similar animals living at comparable depths - even those in opposite hemispheres. But while the creatures are closely related, each trench seems to have its own specific species. Dr Alan Jamieson explains: "Take the snail fish. "In the Japan Trench, there is that one particular snail fish, but there is another species of snail fish in the Kermadac Trench, and there is another one in the Puerto Rico Trench - and they are all very closely related, but they are all different species - but they all live at the same depth." He explains that each species is essentially "trapped" in its own trench - to move in and out of it would require having to swim through too extreme a pressure change.

Back to the Challenger Deep

While the Oceanlab team plans to head out to the Peru-Chile trench next year, scientists in the US have trained their attention on the Marianas Trench. At the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts, US, scientists are hoping their new vehicle Nereus will help to shed more light on the hadal zone.

The submersible can work in two different modes. It can be lowered to the bottom of a trench while tethered to a ship using thousands of kilometres of fine fibre optic cables, which allows scientists to control it from the surface. It can also be untethered and explore the seabed autonomously.

In 2009, in a series of tests to prove that it was stable in the deepest parts of the sea, Nereus reached the bottom of the Marianas Trench. This was only the second time a submersible had made it there since the unstoppable Trieste explorers (in 1995 the Japanese vessel Kaiko made the trip, spotting a sea cucumber, a worm and a shrimp during its stay on the sea bottom).

But next year, the team want to go back - this time to focus on science. Andy Bowen, project manager and principal developer of the sub, says: "There is very little information about what types of life may exist there, so there have been some discussions about possibly using Nereus to contribute to that."

Last frontier

Despite the recent advances, scientists say we have still only scratched the surface of this area of deep-sea research. Lisa Levin from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography says: "We have seen more of the Moon that we've seen of our trenches. "Without doubt this is one of the unknown frontiers."

She is hopeful that the new boost in deep-sea research will help us to better understand this unusual ecosystem - and this could yield some astonishing discoveries along the way. She said: "We are currently in a new era of exploration.

"When you have a unique set of conditions, you are likely to find unique organisms and novel communities and things you never knew about. "I still believe the trenches probably hold some of that."
Click to expand...
Source

deep_sea_trench_786.jpg
 
S

subzero9285

Banned
Oarfish filmed for the first time

oarfish.jpg

Extraordinary footage of a rarely seen giant deep sea fish has been captured by scientists. Using a remotely operated vehicle, they caught a rare glimpse of the huge oarfish, perhaps the first sighting of the fish in its natural setting. The oarfish, which can reach 17m long, has previously only been seen on a few occasions dying at the sea surface, or dead washed ashore.

The scientists also filmed for the first time the behaviour of a manefish. Mark Benfield from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, US was undertaking a survey as part of the Serpent project, a collaboration between marine scientists and energy companies such as BP, Shell, Chevron and Petrobras working in the Gulf of Mexico.

Using remotely operated vehicles (ROV) provided by the oil and gas companies, the scientists are able to explore the deep like never before. During one of these surveys, the scientists glimpsed a giant oarfish.

Sea serpent

Oarfish (Regalecus glesne) are one of the world's longest fish reaching 17m. Their strange appearance may have provided the basis for the sea serpent myths told by early ocean travellers. Not only are they elongated, they also have a prominent dorsal fin which gives it an unusual "serpent" appearance. Recalling the event Professor Benfield explained how at first, they thought the fish was simply a drilling pipe called a riser being lowered into the water.

"We saw this bright vertical shiny thing, I said 'are they lowering more riser?' as it looked like they were lowering a huge pipe."

"We zoomed in a little bit and we said 'that's not a riser that's a fish!'"

"As we approached it retreated downwards swimming tail first in a vertical orientation as the ROV followed," Professor Benfield explained.

The team followed the fish for about five minutes before breaking off contact to resume their surveys.

"What was interesting about the fish was its swimming behaviour," said Professor Benfield.

"It moved by undulating its dorsal fin in waves that propelled it backwards at quite a good speed."

Early estimates measure the fish at between 5m and 10m in length.

Filmed alive

Professor Benfield said this may be the first time the oarfish has been filmed alive swimming in the so-called mesoplagic layer of the ocean. Usually, they are seen dying at the sea surface or washed up dead. The fish may have been caught on camera at a depth of 765m at another Serpent survey site, off western Africa in 2007, but a positive identification has not yet been made from that video. On this occasion the fish was observed underneath Thunderhorse in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the largest semi-submersible oil rigs in the world.

The Serpent project run by the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) is a unique collaborative project between scientists and industry. Oil and gas companies allow scientists access to their deep sea technologies and infrastructure in a bid to aid their research.

"(It) provides a wonderful opportunity to learn more about life in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico. That we found an oarfish while doing so was a fantastic bonus," said Professor Benfield.
Click to expand...
Video
 
F

freitax

Member
Arcipello said:
i dont mind these kind of spiders when they are alone, they dont bite or anything like that.....but when they get together O M G

Spider-breeding.jpg
Click to expand...

I have seen that in real life upon entering a wood shelter in the woods, I left, but I actually don't find those spiders scary, they look so goofy, bouncing up and down:/
 
D

DieNgamers

Member
Thai said:
it's incredible that such large and beautiful creatures have still been unfilmed
Click to expand...
They have...but not in their real natural environment. I saw a video of one swimming near the surface a year ago.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
Bumping with a deer. Musk deer. They are deer. With fangs. That is all.

musk-deer-32.jpg


musk-deer-black-fur12.jpg


musk_deer.jpg


muskdeerskull.jpg


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musk_deer
Musk deer are artiodactyls of the genus Moschus, the only genus of family Moschidae. They are more primitive than the cervids, or true deer, in not having antlers or facial glands, in having only a single pair of teats, and in possessing a gall bladder, a caudal gland, a pair of tusk-like teeth and—of particular economic importance to humans—a musk gland. Moschids live mainly in forested and alpine scrub habitats in the mountains of southern Asia notably Himalayas.

Musk deer resemble small deer with a stocky build, and hind legs longer than their front legs. They are approximately 80-100 cm in length, 50-70 cm tall at the shoulder, and weigh between 7 and 17 kg. The feet of musk deer are adapted for climbing in rough terrain. Like the Chinese Water Deer, a cervid, they have no antlers, but the males do have enlarged upper canines, forming sabre-like tusks.
Click to expand...
 
D

DeadGzuz

Banned
great thread, bad title.

Ungodly? All life is ungodly, it has nothing to do with magic men. Pure products of natural selection.
 
F

Feep

Banned
DeadGzuz said:
great thread, bad title.

Ungodly? All life is ungodly, it has nothing to do with magic men. Pure products of natural selection.
Click to expand...
Hey, I'm with you, but there was no reason to come in here and shit up this cool thread.
 
S

sarcastor

Member
frog.jpg


Weighing in at 1kg, the mountain chicken frog is one of the largest frogs in all the world

igorsmantid2.jpg


this guy takes amazing photos of insects

seamouse.jpg

strangemonster02.jpg


care to guess what this is? It's a
sea mouse. sooo gross

You can find a bunch more at Ugly Overload
 
S

sammy

Member
Hawkian said:
Here are a couple matamata turtles.
30kswax.jpg

mr9x10.jpg
Click to expand...

hell yea! I used to have a pet mata-mata named Brandy :D

coolest turtles, their neck swells up in a split second vacuuming anything up in front of them. Mine was a juvenile but could suck in 4 goldfish. Their skin flakes off and grows moss kinda' like a snapper, so they're extra goofy... not to mention they have a permanent smile
 
Meus Renaissance

Meus Renaissance

Member
DeadGzuz said:
great thread, bad title.

Ungodly? All life is ungodly, it has nothing to do with magic men. Pure products of natural selection.
Click to expand...

I was just thinking "why hasnt the title been shitted on here on GAF?" before I clicked on it :lol
 
K

Kinyou

Member
Alx said:
eeewww at the sea mouse. Never seen a thing like that. o_0
Click to expand...

Its scientific name is taken from Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love. This is because, when viewed ventrally, the sea mouse resembles a human female's genitalia.
Click to expand...


2n8ts8o.jpg



It's actually a worm by the way.
 
S

sarcastor

Member
Kinyou said:
Its scientific name is taken from Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love. This is because, when viewed ventrally, the sea mouse resembles a human female's genitalia.
Click to expand...

what kind of ugly ass women do these scientists sleep with in order to associate that hairy ass worm with one of god's loveliest creations?
 
B

Bloodrage

Banned
Bolivia bug

Puss_caterpillar1.jpg

642px-Megalopyge_opercularisMPCCP20040714-5799A.JPG



Cute right?

The 'fur' of the larva contains venomous spines that cause extremely painful reactions in human skin upon contact. The reactions are sometimes localized to the affected area but are often very severe, radiating up a limb and causing burning, swelling, nausea, headache, abdominal distress, rashes, blisters, and sometimes chest pain, numbness, or difficulty breathing. Additionally, it is not unusual to find sweating from the welts or hives at the site of the sting. Ironically, the resemblance of the larvae to soft, colorful cotton balls encourages people to pick them up and pet them.
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivia_Bug
 
M

Midas

Member
I read about the Kakapo a few years ago, and the funniest part was that because the lack of predators - they forgot how to fly. Yet, when they're scared they can run up a tree, try to fly away but, yeah, fall to the ground like a rock. Must be hilarious to see.
 
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