(ORDO NEWS) — Today we continue the story of the most unusual animals of the Earth, which could easily pass for aliens or sci-fi movie characters.
Tardigrades. (lat. Tardigrada) are a type of microscopic invertebrates close to arthropods. It was first described by German pastor J. A. Götze as kleiner Wasserbär, “little water bear” in 1773.
But do not let the outward softness and clumsiness of this tiny animal bother you: the tardigrade has a lot of hidden talents. The super ability of tardigrades is fantastic survivability: they can survive from a few minutes at a temperature of 150 o C, to several days at -150 o C.
In a vacuum, they feel great for up to a week and a half, and some record holders were able to be brought back to life after 30 years, carried out in a frozen state. Moreover, the thawed individual turned out to be fertile and left behind completely healthy offspring.
Platypus. This funny mammal most of all resembles an animated children’s drawing. The tail of a beaver, the beak and paws of a duck, the fur of an otter – that’s the platypus.
Oh, and do not forget about the small poisonous spurs of males, with which they fight during the mating season, and in everyday life they can kill a medium-sized animal with one injection.
Their reproductive system is also strange: female platypuses lay eggs, but after the cubs hatch, they nurse them.
Army ants. Their English name is Army ants or Legionary ants, and for good reason: these insects represent a blind, but incredibly disciplined and well-armed army.
Its backbone is made up of foragers, whose huge jaws in peacetime make it possible to drag even large loads; then come the males, whose main task is to fertilize the queen; and finally the Queen herself, the center of all activity.
A clear “career” division allows roaming ants to destroy hundreds of other insects on their way every day in order to feed themselves, build nests from bodies, guard millions of queen eggs and carry out other elements of cooperation at such a well-coordinated level that even humans cannot.
Stomatopoda. (lat. Stomatopoda). This detachment is also called “mantis shrimp” or “mantis shrimp”. At first glance, this amazing sea creature is just an example of fragile, graceful beauty.
Stomatopods have one of the most complex visual systems on the planet: there are as many as 16 types of light-sensitive cones in their eyes (for comparison, humans have only 3 of them). In other words, they see the world in a color that is simply not available to us.
But don’t let looks fool you: mantis shrimp are ruthless predators. Such cancer, thanks to powerful tail blows (the energy from which is comparable to the energy from a pistol shot) and the ability to move incredibly quickly in the water column, easily tear off limbs and crush the shells of even large crabs, so not every predator will dare to hunt beautiful babies.
Penguins. It would seem that what could be unusual in this cute, fluffy bird, amusingly waddling on short legs?
It turns out that penguins have a special supraorbital gland on their foreheads that gives them the ability that sailors have dreamed of for years: they can remove sodium chloride from swallowed seawater, in other words, make it fresh. Such a “super kidney” helps birds get rid of excess salts, although it does this indirectly.
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