The most interesting creatures on Earth...

Duggy747

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Ugly bastards. The Aliens would probably go straight back home.

Hmm, I guess I'd have to pull out the cutest one of them all, the Blobfish!

J. Marston

EGAR wrote: »

I've got many many favourites in the animal kingdom. The ones that fascinates me the most at present is the Goblin Shark.

Christ, they are ugly yokes.

luckyfrank

1 Man Bear Pig

2 SEXUAL HARASSMENT PANDA

3 Cock Nose

Thud

a female anglerfish:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/angler

Fizman

Chuck Stone wrote: »

If aliens came to Earth from far far away to investigate the three most interesting creatures which three do you think they would pick?

Let's say humans are a given to be chosen because we can do sums, build stuff, and bake cakes.

What about the other two creatures though? What would the aliens choose and why?

Most humans I've seen can't do one of the above, let alone all three.

smash

J. Marston wrote: »

Christ, they are ugly yokes.

Check out the frilled shark!

du Maurier

Br4tPr1nc3 wrote: »

honeybadger.

the most boss of all animals!

Chuck Stone

Honey Badger would chase the Aliens off because he just doesn't give a shit.

luckyfrank

du Maurier wrote: »

It doesnt give a **** :pac:

kowloon

Alden Tender Student wrote: »

My god. We truly live in a wondrous age. Monotremes. Poisonous spikes. Eggs. What next?

Wikipedia wrote:

Echidnas are small, solitary mammals[4] covered with coarse hair and spines. Superficially, they resemble the anteaters of South America and other spiny mammals such as hedgehogs and porcupines. They have snouts which have the functions of both mouth and nose. Their snouts are elongated and slender. Like the platypus, they are equipped with electrosensors, but while the platypus has 40,000 electroreceptors on its bill, the long-billed echidna has only 2,000, and the short-billed echidna, which lives in a drier environment, has no more than 400 located at the tip of its snout.[5] They have very short, strong limbs with large claws, and are powerful diggers. Echidnas have a tiny mouth and a toothless jaw. The echidna feeds by tearing open soft logs, anthills and the like, and using its long, sticky tongue, which protrudes from its snout, to collect prey. The short-beaked echidna's diet consists largely of ants and termites, while the Zaglossus species typically eats worms and insect larvae.[6]

Long-beaked echidnas have sharp, tiny spines on their tongues that help capture their prey.[6]

Echidnas and the platypus are the only egg-laying mammals, known as monotremes. The female lays a single soft-shelled, leathery egg 22 days after mating, and deposits it directly into her pouch. Hatching takes place after ten days; the young echidna, called a puggle, then sucks milk from the pores of the two milk patches (monotremes have no nipples) and remains in the pouch for 45 to 55 days,[7] at which time it starts to develop spines. The mother digs a nursery burrow and deposits the puggle, returning every five days to suckle it until it is weaned at seven months. The average wild echidna can grow as old as 16 years.[citation needed]

Male echidnas have a four-headed penis. During mating, the heads on one side "shut down" and do not grow in size; the other two are used to release semen into the female's two-branched reproductive tract. The heads used are swapped each time the mammal copulates.[8]

Contrary to previous research, the echidna does enter REM sleep, but only when the ambient temperature is around 25°C (77°F). At temperatures of 15°C (59°F) and 28°C (~82°F), REM sleep is suppressed.

Mother of God!

tayto lover

summerskin wrote: »

They lick their own shit and then lick you.

Not sure who's less intelligent, dogs or their owners that believe the dogs love them for any reason other than that you feed them.

Had a Border Collie once who saved the life of a neighbour's two year old child by pulling her in off the road after someone left their gate open.
He could lick as much **** as he liked after that.

Silverfish

Duggy747 wrote: »

Hmm, I guess I'd have to pull out the cutest one of them all, the Blobfish!

The blobfish only looks like that because he's been pulled out of the water, where he has to exert external pressure to stop from being crushed by the weight of the water, so when that pressure is lifted, his body collapses.

Here's what he actually looks like. D'awwww!!

Funglegunk

Axolotls? I love those immortal little guys.

kumate_champ07

http://tardigrade.acnatsci.org/tardigrades/pic311.png

Tardigrades are able to survive in extreme environments that would kill almost any other animal. Some can survive temperatures of close to absolute zero (−273 °C (−459 °F)),[7] temperatures as high as 151 °C (304 °F), 1,000 times more radiation than other animals,[8] and almost a decade without water.[9] Since 2007, tardigrades have also returned alive from studies in which they have been exposed to the vacuum of outer space for a few days in low earth orbit.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade

Funglegunk

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

http://tardigrade.acnatsci.org/tardigrades/pic311.png

Tardigrades are able to survive in extreme environments that would kill almost any other animal. Some can survive temperatures of close to absolute zero (−273 °C (−459 °F)),[7] temperatures as high as 151 °C (304 °F), 1,000 times more radiation than other animals,[8] and almost a decade without water.

Awwww, he wants a hug.

Viral Vector

The Bowerbird

I saw it on a Attenborough production and it was amazing!

The male bird makes a nest out of berries and animal poo to woo a female into intercourse!

About a years work for five seconds of sex!

Funglegunk

Viral Vector wrote: »

The Bowerbird

I saw it on a Attenborough production and it was amazing!

The male bird makes a nest out of berries and animal poo to woo a female into intercourse!

About a years work for five seconds of sex!

I know plenty of humans who do the same...

44leto

Originally Posted by Viral Vector
The Bowerbird

I saw it on a Attenborough production and it was amazing!

The male bird makes a nest out of berries and animal poo to woo a female into intercourse!

About a years work for five seconds of sex!

5 whole seconds he must do it twice.

Sonic the Large Cock

If Aliens came here they would Jurassic Park us and take the Raptors home with them and leave us fighting mamoths and what not and watch us on their ET Sky Network, we would probably be a hit with the mutants from the Orion nebula

Wibbs

Chuck Stone wrote: »

That's true but cats don't usually try to lick the faces and mouths of humans unlike dogs.

True, but dogs don't tend to climb all over your kitchen surfaces either. Thank fcuk. Having a full grown alsation on the sink unit would be a bi of a WTF moment.

smash wrote: »

I thought Dolphins did? I know they're smarter than whales too.

Eh humans? Compared to us, cetaceans are swivel eyed windowlickers grunting in the dark.

KeithAFC

Nothing. Aliens planted us, so...

MadYaker

My dog only has 3 legs.

The_Thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBDgQL2FDug

The Leafy Sea Dragon has to be one of the weirdest creatures I've ever seen. They seem to me so utterly fragile and vulnerable that to even gaze upon them for too long would cause them harm.

Capt'n Midnight

dem yokes that live around black smokers

mantis shrimp

butterfly

in the same way that Europeans named animals after familiar ones at home, perhaps they'd like something that resemebled their own animals.

on earth we have a lot of convergent evolution so maybe they won't see stuff as being so different.


perhaps the sheer size of a Blue Whale might impress

Sindri

Full.Duck wrote: »

Whales!

They have the most sophisticated form of communication on this planet.

There speech patterns (or capability to utilise phonemes), if that is the correct word(?) I think is more complex than humans, but there actual communicative lexicon is not.

Full.Duck wrote: »

If aliens came down the first thing to do would be to find the easiest way to communicate with a species. That would be the whales.

Surely the easiest animal to communicate with would be a dog?

Or possibly any other animal that may resemble their physical constraints, so probably humans I'd imagine.

If a whales speech is complex would that not make it harder?

An alien may in fact have quite a primitive command of language as we know it, and possibly the structure of their language may make it seem relatively primitive to ours, our incredibly complex, or maybe even they're telepathic?


The most magnificent animal I am (partially) aware of would be some extinct species related to modern crocodiles. Current estimations for some of there lengths goes as high as 43 feet. I think that's pretty cool. Humans would have found it difficult to become apex predators with these things around. (**** you Chuck, I don't care if it doesn't count because they're extinct, I play by my own rules!)


Also Fungi.

kowloon

I give youy the Lyrebird

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOFy8QkNWWs

Jarren

Swans,not many left mind you.

Capt'n Midnight

Sindri wrote: »

Humans would have found it difficult to become apex predators with these things around

Megalania was a lizard that was a little smaller at 7m , and could have weighed up to 2 tonnes. But unlike a croc it was a land animal. It's smaller cousins today chase down rabbits , it's size and the heat of the outback means it was more or less warm blooded. With a croc you are safe enough when you put some distance between you and the water.

Oh and if that wasn't bad enough it was quite possibly the largest venomous creature that has ever existed. As to why something that big needs poison as well , well that's Australia for you where everything seems to be over kill. Love the way Dylan Moran went on about "swimming knives"



It went extinct around the same time humans arrived in Oz.

revell

ladybug, as elegant as a lady but as cute as a bug:)

WindSock

RichieC wrote: »

Ravens and Crows, scary intelligent, tool users in many cases, devilish problem solvers.

As are Kea's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twg4Yg4gFoo

Discodog

Given that any arriving Alien would be of vastly superior intelligence to anything on Earth they would chat to the Whales & then wipe out the humans & give the planet back to the animals :eek:

We measure "intelligence" using human interpretation. We are just beginning to realise that many animals are highly intelligent. No one could of watched the Bonobo using a sign board to communicate on the recent BBC Program "The World's most intelligent animals" without a sense of wonder. Or the Chimp that can solve problems way quicker than any human. Us dog owners know that our dogs are incredibly perceptive & just because they don't respond to training style tests does not mean that they are unintelligent.

I tend to agree with Stephen Hawking that we should be wary of announcing our prescience to Aliens.

By the way the common Crow is intelligent enough to remember & recognise the face of someone who caught it 5 years ago.

44leto

Discodog wrote: »

Given that any arriving Alien would be of vastly superior intelligence to anything on Earth they would chat to the Whales & then wipe out the humans & give the planet back to the animals :eek:

We measure "intelligence" using human interpretation. We are just beginning to realise that many animals are highly intelligent. No one could of watched the Bonobo using a sign board to communicate on the recent BBC Program "The World's most intelligent animals" without a sense of wonder. Or the Chimp that can solve problems way quicker than any human. Us dog owners know that our dogs are incredibly perceptive & just because they don't respond to training style tests does not mean that they are unintelligent.

I tend to agree with Stephen Hawking that we should be wary of announcing our prescience to Aliens.

By the way the common Crow is intelligent enough to remember & recognise the face of someone who caught it 5 years ago.

I seen that programme Liz Bonnin presented it, but they are all one trick ponies. When it comes to intelligence nothing out there is even remotely close to humans. It was a good programme the dog on the skateboard looked weird.

Discodog

44leto wrote: »

I seen that programme Liz Bonnin presented it, but they are all one trick ponies. When it comes to intelligence nothing out there is even remotely close to humans. It was a good programme the dog on the skateboard looked weird.

I totally disagree. They are one trick ponies because that it all we have tested for. How can you measure the intelligence of a great Whale ? But in any event the Aliens would want to see how we have used our intelligence - I don't think that we would pass the test. I wonder how animals would define intelligence ?

44leto

Discodog wrote: »

I totally disagree. They are one trick ponies because that it all we have tested for. How can you measure the intelligence of a great Whale ? But in any event the Aliens would want to see how we have used our intelligence - I don't think that we would pass the test. I wonder how animals would define intelligence ?

By having the ability to understand the world around you, above and below you even understanding the abstract world. Whales maybe clever and very smart hunters but they would never develop a net because they can't think abstractly.

To make a net you must first perceive a net, no animals appart from us apes can do that. You could never train or a whale or a chimp to do that.

Amirani

Humans are only the third most intelligent beings on Earth, after dolphins and mice of course. Sure the planet was only built based on consultation with the mice?

44leto

NiallSparky wrote: »

Humans are only the third most intelligent beings on Earth, after dolphins and mice of course. Sure the planet was only built based on consultation with the mice?

I loved the title of that book

"So long and thanks for the fish" the fourth book in the hitchhiker trilogy.

Owen

Kangaroo Rat is pretty awesome too - doesn't need to drink water.

Discodog

44leto wrote: »

To make a net you must first perceive a net, no animals appart from us apes can do that. You could never train or a whale or a chimp to do that.

Whales make nets & use them. They were doing so long before man existed. We make nets from cord & it involves a lot of work. Whales make theirs from bubbles & it takes seconds - plenty of videos on youtube. Whales make nets because it makes feeding easier. They are not going to try & make something that they don't need.

They have evolved for longer than us & have way bigger brains. We have no idea of how intelligent they are.

44leto

Discodog wrote: »

Whales make nets & use them. They were doing so long before man existed. We make nets from cord & it involves a lot of work. Whales make theirs from bubbles & it takes seconds - plenty of videos on youtube. Whales make nets because it makes feeding easier. They are not going to try & make something that they don't need.

They have evolved for longer than us & have way bigger brains. We have no idea of how intelligent they are.

They are not smart enough tp avoid a harpoon.

Discodog

44leto wrote: »

They are not smart enough tp avoid a harpoon.

They didn't evolve to avoid harpoons. Until man arrived & used his "intelligence" they had nothing to fear. They can't avoid a harpoon because they have to surface for air. Man is intelligent but he can't dodge a bullet.

But they do have the intelligence to realise that not all humans pose a threat. The Grey Whales that come to meet tourists in California & bring their young to show them us, bit like us being in a zoo, are old enough to remember being hunted in the past.

bleg

It would probably be the one that has conquered every ecosystem, from ice cap to desert, searing hot to freezing cold, dark to bright. One species has outshone all others:


Bacteria :pac:

DEFTLEFTHAND

There's a campaign ongoing to have Whales and Dolphins classified as higher beings, 'Non Human Persons'. Apparently its them who are closest to humans in the intelligence stakes.

4zn76tysfajdxp

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

There's a campaign ongoing to have Whales and Dolphins classified as higher beings, 'Non Human Persons'. Apparently its them who are closest to humans in the intelligence stakes.

They'll be running for president next.

steddyeddy

44leto wrote: »

I seen that programme Liz Bonnin presented it, but they are all one trick ponies. When it comes to intelligence nothing out there is even remotely close to humans. It was a good programme the dog on the skateboard looked weird.

I disagree with that I have to say. Some of the great apes are uncomfortably close to humans in intelligence.

Silverfish

44leto wrote: »

They are not smart enough tp avoid a harpoon.

Should be more like the octopus again so.


(I like how at the end he's all 'I TAKE YOUR CAMERA :mad::mad::mad:")

Fago!

Not sure if it was said already, but there's this type of jellyfish in the carribean that goes through some sort of chemical change after sexual reproduction that replenishes its cells and reverts back to adolescence, making it technically immortal. Biologically immortal is the correct term i think.

I can't remember where i read about it but it interested me anyway.

Tardigrades

kumate_champ07

44leto wrote: »

By having the ability to understand the world around you, above and below you even understanding the abstract world. Whales maybe clever and very smart hunters but they would never develop a net because they can't think abstractly.

To make a net you must first perceive a net, no animals appart from us apes can do that. You could never train or a whale or a chimp to do that.

whales create a net with their bodies by rounding up schools of fish and trapping them

spiders are a whole lot smaller than whales and less intelligent
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Spider_web_with_dew_drops03.jpg
looks like a net to me

Capt'n Midnight

bleg wrote: »

It would probably be the one that has conquered every ecosystem, from ice cap to desert, searing hot to freezing cold, dark to bright. One species has outshone all others:


Bacteria :pac:

There are more than one species of bacteria. Few can tolerate many ecosystems. Some thermophiles will freeze to death in boiling water, (it's just their spores that will survive)



Water bears on the other hand take vacuums in their stride.

Unconfirmed reports of them literally wandering around inside the vacuum of an electron microscope.

cartell_best

Sponge Bob