Tag: nature

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Bat looks like something from a horror movie

drawing of a bat with long canine teeth
Artist rendering of the Hypsugo dolichodon

A newly discovered bat is the stuff of nightmares! This article by Mongabay introduces the Long -toothed Pipistrelle or Hypsugo dolichodon that was recently classified in Vietnam. Basically, that’s a mouthful describing a bat with a mouthful! It has enormous teeth, like something from a horror film!

The picture on the right shows an artist rendering of this amazing bat, but you can see the photos in the original article. Why such large teeth? Scientists speculate that these bats feed on beetles and other insects that are a little tougher to get into.

The new  classification is the result of 17 years of research. We can imagine that in that time there were plenty of people who told stories of monster-toothed bats who were just not believed. Let us know how this fellow turns out in your nightmares tonight.

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Scary wasp

Pepsis formosa02
By Davehood at en.wikipedia (Transferred from en.wikipedia) [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons
If you don’t like bugs, this one may not be for you. Have you ever been stung by a wasp? Painful? It’s not nearly the pain you’d experience if you’d been stung by the Tarantula Hawk. This ginormous wasp has the most painful sting on the planet, according to the Schmidt pain index.

What in the world requires this insect to be so bad-assed? It hunts tarantulas! This wasp attacks tarantulas and lays eggs inside, which grow in the host, eventually emerging and devouring it. Ain’t nature beautiful? Here is video of a battle between a Tarantula Hawk and its prey. These are tough little things!

 

 

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Gator:1, Pickup: 0

A man is driving his truck through some high grass and comes across an alligator. Of course, you’re going to take out your phone and film this. Then you might play a little chicken with the gator, trying to get him to move along. Then…

 

Wow! I guess they don’t make them like they used to! The steel bumper on my Grandaddy’s old Chevy pickup would have been more of a match for this thing. I wonder if having video of you taunting an alligator into going Godzilla on you affects the insurance claim.

If you have video of a strange animal encounter, send it to us!

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Strange new creatures

Photo by NBC News

In 1995, divers discovered bizarre configurations about 6 feet in diameter off the coast of Japan’s Amami-Oshima Island. They resembled crop circles. Were these underwater aliens?

The answer turned out to be a newly classified pufferfish, Torquigener albomaculosus. The “Crop Circle Fish” was among many species that received scientific names over the last year. The International Institute for Species Exploration has listed their their top 10 of nearly 18,000 newly named species.

These obscure creatures may be hidden away in environments that are not populated by people, such as the strange creatures we are discovering deep beneath the ocean. Others are known locally, but only recently noticed by the scientific community. Here are the other nine recognized on this “top 10” list:

  • Anzu wyliei, also known as “the Chicken From Hell,” is a 10-foot-tall birdlike dinosaur which lived around 66 million years ago in the Dakotas.
  • The Balanophora coralliformis is a parasitic plant found only on the southwestern slopes of Mount Mingan in the Philippines. It has a unique, coral-like appearance because of branches of above-ground tubers which have a coarse texture.
  • The bizarre Cebrennus rechenbergi, or cartwheeling spider, uses a strange flipping motion to propel itself over the sands of Morocco.
  • Dendrogramma enigmatica are multicellular animals resembling mushrooms. Not only a new species, they may represent an entirely new phylum!
  • The so-called Bone-house wasp, Deuteragenia ossarium, from southeast China, uses corpses of ants to ward off predators by stuffing them into crevices on the outside of the nest.
  • The Limnonectes larvaepartus is a fanged frog from Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, that gives live birth to tadpoles that are deposited into pools of water. Other species hatch from eggs.
  • The Phryganistria tamdaoensis, discovered in Vietnam, is the world’s second longest insect.
  • A Sea Slug, Phyllodesmium acanthorhinum, is a particularly beautiful variety that might be a sort of “missing link” in the sea slug world.
  • A Mexican plant had been used for years in “nacimientos,” or altar scenes depicting the birth of Christ, by villagers in Sierra de Tepoztlán, Tlayacapan, San José de los Laureles, and Tepoztlán.  It turned out to be a species of Bromeliad previously unknown to science. It’s been dubbed Tillandsia religiosa.

These are only ten from thousands of newly classified species. As we continue to seek perhaps we’ll finally be giving scientific names to some of the legendary creatures such as Bigfoot that have eluded and fascinated seekers for centuries.

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Sounds in the sky

People around the world are reporting a strange trumpeting sound that seems to come from the sky. It’s a massive droning unlike any aircraft we’ve ever heard before.

Listen to the sounds in this video from Texas.

Another video from Germany is very similar, though less distinct.

https://youtu.be/0hgx0dbzayM

There is speculation that we are hearing the mysterious HAARP project, a radio-wave device that some claim is used for weather control. Officials deny that HAARP has any affect on the weather, though there is a patent, number 4686605,  which appears to describe exactly such a theory. HAARP was supposedly set to be dismantled in 2014, but page 92 of this US Navy budget request shows continued funding.

Other theories about these sounds are:

Have you ever experienced sounds like these? Do you think they’re natural phenomena? Share your thoughts and stories.

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BEWARE THE MIGHTY BEAVER

Image by True Wildlife
Image by True Wildlife
Honey badgers step aside. The beaver is the new bad ass of the animal kingdom.

One unfortunate man in Belarus found out the hard way that beavers are not fans of the paparazzi. According to Sky News, the man was on a fishing trip to Lake Shestakov when he and his traveling companion spied the wild animal on the side of the road. In an attempt to seize a quick pic with the creature, the man approached and tried to pose with the beaver. The beaver had other plans, however, and promptly sank its fangs into the man’s thigh twice, severing his femoral artery, causing him to bleed to death in a matter of minutes.

“It was early morning and already light when they saw a beaver by the road, which was unusual because beavers are nocturnal,” Sergei Shtyk, the deputy head of the region’s wildlife inspectorate, told The Daily Telegraph.

“One of them went up to be photographed with it, and the animal attacked him and bit him twice, cutting an artery in his thigh, before running away.”

Beware the mighty beaver! They have work to do building dams and little time for photo ops.