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Cute and cuddly animals make us feel so warm and fuzzy inside
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And that's part of the appeal of having a dog or cat as a go-to companion animal, right? But we've all seen those animals that make you stop and think
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why on earth do you look the way that you look? And I love asking this question, because these weird-looking animals are ugly
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for some of the most amazing reasons. Hi everyone, I'm Jada. I study shark movement ecology, and I love all animals
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whether they're silky, smooth, squishy, or slimy. I think they're all pretty awesome
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Take, for example, the blobfish. It's kind of the epitome of ugly, but it really only looks like that at the surface
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It's a deep sea sculpin species, so it looks totally normal at about 4,000 feet deep
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It's under constant pressure high enough to give its body some structure, so it has less of a need for bones and muscles than other fish do
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Take an animal with not a lot of natural body structure from the deep sea to the surface
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and it's going to look a lot like melted ice cream. Plus, the image that we're so used to seeing is a preserved specimen
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and chemicals used in the preservation process, like ethanol, dry things out
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The blobfish is the first of a couple weird-looking animals that we're going to talk about today
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From the star-nosed mole to fish with eyes in places you wouldn't really expect
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I'm excited to give some love to some very underappreciated weird-looking animals out there
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So let's get into exactly why some of these animals are so ugly. Let's take a gander at the goblin shark
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These deep sea sharks truly live up to their names because they straight up look like monsters They got these long thin snouts filled with electroception pores just like other sharks have and they use it to detect the electromagnetic field of prey items like fish They may be goblins but that sounds like a superpower to me
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Now, we run into the issue of the goblin shark's jaw. Unlike humans, it is not fused to the rest of their head
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Instead, it is connected only by ligaments, allowing the jaw to move like a slingshot more than you would hope that a jaw does
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This allows the jaw to shoot out super fast, grab prey right under the shark's nose
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without really moving its body. This may be kind of a compensation for the fact that these sharks aren't all that good at swimming
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And nutrients in the deep sea can be really hard to come by, so you better snack a snack when it's literally right under your nose
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otherwise you might need to go hungry. Could you imagine if humans were able to shoot their jaws out the way that goblin sharks do
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That is nightmare fuel, but hey, goblin sharks gotta eat too. The aye-aye is a species of lemur that is endemic to Madagascar
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meaning that it only lives on that one African island. Its separation from the rest of the world is exactly why it's as specialized as it is
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Because islands, especially remote ones, are so far removed from the pressures of the mainland
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their ecosystems can look a lot different. Through adaptation, this can lead to some highly specialized features of certain species
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I'm sure you've noticed their giant eye eyes. That's because these animals are nocturnal, so having large eyes helps them see better in the dark
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And of course, we have to talk about this incredibly long finger that they have
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As weird as it may seem, it's for feeding. They use that finger to tap tap tap on a tree, listening with their giant ears for vibrations
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indicating that there might be a grub hiding inside. That is called percussive foraging It similar to echolocation which primates generally don engage in so points for originality They use their funky looking incisors to bite through the tree bark and they use that super long finger unreasonably long I might argue to pull a grub
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out, and bam, it's dinner time. Judge me if you must, but I personally think that the star-nosed
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mole is pretty darn cute. Now, these animals are fossorial, meaning that they live underground
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We as humans typically need a shovel in order to dig, but who needs a shovel when your hands are
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as large as theirs. I bet they're really come in handy. But of course, their most prominent feature
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is that star nose of theirs. I mean, it is their namesake after all. The star nose mole is nearly
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blind, which is a trade-off for fossorial life, so their super snip and snout is essential for
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finding prey. They move it incredibly fast, touching up to 12 different places per second
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to gather as much information on their surroundings as possible. And with about 100,000 nerve endings
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in that nose, it's got five times more touch sensors than your entire hand. So weird? Yes
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Functional? Incredibly. Now we got to take a second to appreciate the bear-alive fish
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So this fish has eyes inside of its head, which is transparent. Its eyes are completely enclosed
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inside of a clear dome. Why? Well apparently these fish live in pretty deep waters, up to 2,600 feet
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deep. There's not a lot of light down there, so their eyes are specially developed to collect as
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much light as possible and the clear dome is going to help with that. Typically
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their eyes are looking straight up in search of food They can also move their eyes in a few different directions For example when they do spot food they can rotate their eyes forward to make sure that the food gets into their tiny little mouths Additionally they been known to steal food from siphonophores which have stinging cells in their tentacles So props to
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evolution! So there's not really a way to ease into a discussion about the long-waddled umbrella
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bird, so we're just gonna jump right in. That thing on its neck, it's called a waddle. And I'm
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convinced Mother Nature put it there to make humans question everything. Waddles on males are typically
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a lot bigger and wattles on females are either a lot smaller or completely absent so it's pretty
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easy to tell which bird is a male and which bird is a female that is called sexual dimorphism
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these wattles are actually used for mate attraction females think it's sexy somehow so the males will
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poof up the umbrellas on the top of their head and inflate that waddle to make it look like a big
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black pine cone now this waddle may be great for getting a girlfriend but not so great for flying
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because these things are clearly not aerodynamic though they can contract a bit to make flying a
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a little bit easier. This is a kind of trade-off that we see all the time in the animal kingdom
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You lose a little bit of one skill to gain another one and oftentimes that results in
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animals looking like they walked straight out of a Dr. Seuss book. But what can you do
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So yeah, animals can be ugly, but they're ugly in some of the most extraordinary ways
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Beauty is subjective and in the eyes of evolution, all of these animals are absolutely stunning
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They have adaptations that make them unbelievably well made for the environments that they live
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in. And that is something to be admired. Plus finding out about funky animals like these
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makes life so much more fun. So there you have it. Fun facts about six kind of creepy, incredibly
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cool creatures because sometimes you just gotta know why some animals are ugly
