WORLD'S WEIRDEST AND ENDANGERED SPECIES-
from web ecoist and other sources.
kakapo
this is not only the rarest, but the strangest parrot in the world. Imagine a rather portly nocturnal bird that never flies, preferring to hike through hilly forest for miles every night. It weighs in as the heaviest parrot in the world at 8 pounds. Imagine this and you have the very real (but virtually extinct)
kakapo. A resident of New Zealand, which is home to a number of rare birds, there are only 62 kakapos remaining on earth. (Bonus fact: New Zealand is full of unusual creatures. It originally had no native land mammals, so its many unique birds evolved in unusual ways – which unfortunately has made them very vulnerable to mammals that were brought in during European colonization.)
leaping lesbian lizard
Officially named
Cnemidophorus uniparens, these American desert
lizards reproduce despite the fact that they’re all female. Interestingly, some of them simulate sexual acts (
above, left) with each other just like male and female lizards, and it’s been discovered that when they do they reproduce more successfully than their abstemious sisters.
anglerfish-from natgeo
The angry-looking deep sea anglerfish has a right to be cranky. It is quite possibly the ugliest animal on the planet, and it lives in what is easily Earth's most inhospitable habitat: the lonely, lightless bottom of the sea.
There are more than 200 species of anglerfish, most of which live in the murky depths of the Atlantic and Antarctic oceans, up to a mile below the surface, although some live in shallow, tropical environments. Generally dark gray to dark brown in color, they have huge heads and enormous crescent-shaped mouths filled with sharp, translucent teeth. Some angler fish can be quite large, reaching 3.3 feet (1 meter) in length. Most however are significantly smaller, often less than a foot.
Their most distinctive feature, worn only by females, is a piece of dorsal spine that protrudes above their mouths like a fishing pole—hence their name. Tipped with a lure of luminous flesh this built-in rod baits prey close enough to be snatched. Their mouths are so big and their bodies so pliable, they can actually swallow prey up to twice their own size.
The male, which is significantly smaller than the female, has no need for such an adaptation. In lieu of continually seeking the vast abyss for a female, it has evolved into a permanent parasitic mate. When a young, free-swimming male angler encounters a female, he latches onto her with his sharp teeth. Over time, the male physically fuses with the female, connecting to her skin and bloodstream and losing his eyes and all his internal organs except the testes. A female will carry six or more males on her body.
Fast Facts
Type:Fish
Diet:Carnivore
Size:8 in (20 cm) up to 3.3 ft (1 m)
Weight:Up to 110 lbs (50 kg)
Group name:School
Did you know?The anglerfish's lighted lure glows with the help of millions of bioluminescent bacteria.
Size relative to a tea cup:
Looking like something out of a science fiction movie, the anglerfish uses a natural lure to draw its next meal nearer.
Photograph by
Bruce Robison/Corbis


thawa tikak pasuwata... honde..