Weird Nature

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Original article is here.
http://www.wired.com/2013/09/weird-weblike-thing/

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Brazilian tree hopper, no one really knows why they have these strange horns but it might be a visual deterrence for predators.

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Crab orb-weaving spider.

I am starting to think that spiders are like the tropical birds of the arthropod kingdom.

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Real life zergling

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The assassin beetle carries the corpses of its previous meals around with it so it can infiltrate the nests and burrows of it's prey. It smells like a friend.

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I don't have words for this one. I am not sure how this thing even evolved...

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big black booty

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Venus flytraps, they have evolved a functional mouth/stomach and they are fucking plants.

>>2166694
When I think I've seen every strange insect the world could throw at me.

Thanks anon

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Giraffe weevil

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moss mimic stick insect

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>>2166746
Thats okay friend, I am pretty obsessed with strange insects/biology at the moment so I wanted to start a thread to share what I love and hope someone can show me new things too.

Giant New Zealand Weta

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Nice Thread

This is Misumena vatia and it can change it's colour to the one of the flower it is on. It feeds on insects that visit the flower.

>>2166741
Not really mouths and stomachs. More so digestive enzymes and a way to absorb it at a cellular level. Kinda like sea sponges.

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I've always found Glass Sponges batshit weird. Their structure is composed entirely of silica, and have broken down their cell walls to have sort of continuous cells. They form cold water reefs, can live for 10s of 1000s of years, are unable to move or contract and are sometimes lightly bioluminescent. One species even has a symbiotic relationship with shrimp, in which a pair live out their entire lives inside the tiny cage of the sponge. Very beautiful but creepy little fuckers.

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>>2166812
moss mimic mantis

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>>2166818
moss mimic frog

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velvet worms freak me out. they look like centipedes without an exoskeleton and spitting glue to pin down prey is horrifying as well

>>2166680
http://www.wired.com/2013/12/web-tower-mystery-solved/

It's actually from spiders

>>2166828
I have seen those weird spider webs on Chile, (the pictures are from a small island in Peru), specifically in the in the V region in a town called Quillota, they're really tiny.

Also we still don't know why the spider does it.

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Ascidia. These sponge things are chordates and related to us

>>2166859
IS A WALL FOR THE MEXICANS

>>2167146
I'm seriously thinking in pay for the wall, to keep the americans from coming to south america.

>>2166822
Really? I personally find it adorable.

Now, if you want something scary, look up bobbit worm. Especially their mating habbits.

>>2166826
Just made that my desktop background, thanks mate.

>>2167129
You really can't draw an arbitrary line and say related/not related.
We're related to all animal life

And plant, and fungi too for that matter.
Maybe not archaea.

>>2166680
Black people

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>>2167395

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Beep Beep, cutest bug coming though.

>>2167434
>ima tickle ur butt with mah hair :3

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>>2167434
Cute bugs you say?

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bat flies. they don't even have wings

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Assassin spiders have long mandibles, forearms, and a neck-like carapace to attack their prey without fear of being bitten itself

>>2167484
It's supposed to be a fly? They look more like spiders than anything

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>>2167509
It's a wingless fly. Louseflies look pretty weird too.

>>2167484
That's the most disgusting scariest thing I've ever seen. Terrifying

If I may digress slightly - a different area of strange nature that interests me (atmospheric phenomenon):

Crown Flash
-- presumably electrical field fluctuations in the clouds which distort the synchronized orientation of floating ice crystals catching the sun's light, creating the illusion of rapidly shape-shifting "clouds"

https://youtu.be/hJokSDCSePQ

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this is one of peron's sea snakes. it has circular pupils, which look weird on a snake.

>>2167484
sweet mother of god....

>>2167434
What?

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>>2167972
it's not actually called Beep Beep

>>2166818
>>2166820
Any animal that looks like moss is awesome. I love moss.

>>2167966
>>2167978
>never talk to me or my son ever again.

>>2167486
Love these

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>>2168003

>>2167984
I have a pleurocarp fetish, you're not alone.

>>2167388
the thing is we are a lot closer to those spongy things than fungi or plant. WAY closer.

>>2168701
>>2167388
Or as a better comparison, these things are WAY closer to us than they are to actual polyps and sponge

>>2167486
Looks like a Nerubian from Warcraft

If anyone is interested I'll take a picture of a spider nest that took a ride down from NC. It took a ride down, started making a web in the house on the cuttings, and I had to move him. I put her outside (her because she was making a web with eggs already). She kept trying to protect the eggs I actually felt bad for the little spider. Anyways I picked her and the eggs up with toothpick and deposited them outside in a metal figurine. I left the toothpick there with the eggs and spider. When I came back tomorrow the spider had connected the toothpick to all sides of the figurine but in a way that had the toothpick perfectly vertical.The eggs were atop the toothpick and the toothpick layed ever so perfectly to touch just barely the bottom of the figurine. It was quite...awesome. The spider had died...so I felt kinda bad...clearly it was thriving in the house.

>>2168716
Yes please

>>2167476
>dragonflies having sex in the water bead

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>>2167972
Nogodinidae

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>>2168990
As adults they look like this