is leeee in the sandbox? does anybody else like weird animals? I think he would be interested in this

i also enjoy weird animals

hi leee! just look at that probiscus thingy

b_g, what are you favorite weird animals

Not so much weird, as, clearly, HUEG:

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/111201-coslog-insect-415p.photoblog900.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/FYSFi.png

wetas look like such chill dudes, all the time

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3347/3315807190_a0832c2ed7.jpg

like their one goal in life is to get fat and laze around with that big belly

RIP ILX or I'd bump my entomology thread

Entomology thread??! Would click on!

HA! i was just coming here to post the giant weta pic. i've never seen one irl that big, but one time as i was walking out of a bank i felt something crunchy down the leg of my pants... i shook my leg and a weta fell out. it was probably about 3" long.

What I love about this shit is its 2011 and we're *still* going "omg found this new species of thing never seen before". The planet is so huge and so diverse and we have one fifth of no idea what the fuck is going on in most of it and I love that.

My dad says that all the time and ends the musing with, "Who knows? One of those species could have the cure for cancer."

Irony of phallus dentatum:

Rather than the sleek, smooth tadpoles that other mammals have, the mole rat’s sperm had all manner of abnormally shaped heads. Some are squashed, others long. Some have bulbous lobes all over them. There are sperm with shrunken heads, two heads, conical heads. The DNA inside them isn’t packaged properly. Most are asymmetrical. And all the males – whether breeding or not – had the same misshapen sperm.
...
With all these deviations, it’s no surprise that the naked mole rat’s sperm won’t be winning any races. Only between 1 and 15 percent of them can actually swim, and just 1 percent of these can swim quickly. The vast majority move at a slow crawl; they might even be the slowest sperm of any mammal.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/files/2011/12/Sperm.gif

loool

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/files/2011/12/penis.jpg

^^^ engorged ostrich penis, btw.

http://www.knullen.com/gallery3/var/albums/Chameleon---The-master-of-Camouflage/Brown%20Leaves%20Chameleon.jpeg

(Fantastic Leaf-tailed Gecko, aka Satanic (wtf?) Leaf-tailed Gecko)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries/8940584/Animal-camouflage-can-you-spot-these-masters-of-disguise-playing-hide-and-seek.html?image=2

That's amazing. Ostrich peen is horrible. ;_;

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/diamond-weevil-rainbow-scales/

http://i.imgur.com/kCkJK.jpg

Not so much weird but great photography:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-E3AksApWGqU/Tv5MnQKmWXI/AAAAAAAABMs/hVWkocZdnW4/s400/Ant_bite.jpg

She's all, "WTF r u lookin @???"