Some of World's Weirdest Animals

HAGFISH


If there's a sea creature more repellent than the blobfish, it's this ghastly specimen, which even scientists have labelled the most "disgusting" fish on the planet. To escape predators, the hagfish exudes copious quantities of a viscous slime. That's the nice bit. To feed, it enters its victim through the mouth, gills or anus, and devours it from the inside out. Yep, the hagfish has absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever.


STAR-NOSED MOLE

The star-nosed mole best resembles a strange sci-fi amalgamation of two different creatures. It is, for the most part, a common or garden mole, with thick, dark fur and a long thick tail. But its nose seems to belong to another animal altogether. The ring of 22 fleshy pink tentacles that wave around at the end of its snout should really be living on its own at the bottom of the sea. The tentacles may be invaluable for identifying food in murky conditions, but aesthetically speaking, only the star-nosed mole's mother could love it.


TRANSPARENT SEA CUCUMBER


A transparent sea cucumber, identified as Enypniastes, was photographed at a depth of 2,750 meters (9,200) in the northern Gulf of Mexico. In the same spot a "wildcat" tubeworm was caught in the act of dining on crude oil. When the worm was extracted by a robot arm from the sea bed, oil gushed both from the animal's body and the hole in which it was found.


BLOBFISH


The blobfish looks likes something out of a cartoon. Or it would, if there was a cartoon about the unfortunate adventures of the grumpiest, ugliest fish on earth. Don't blame the blobfish, though. To survive the intense pressure at depths of 1,000m and more, its body is largely made up of a jelly-like substance slightly less dense than water. The jelly allows it to float just above the sea floor without having to expend energy on swimming. So lazy as well as ugly, then.


AXOLOTL

The axolotl is a Mexican mole salamander, about 15-45cm in length, and one of the cleverest critters you're ever likely to meet. If the axolotl loses a limb, it will grow another. If it loses a certain part of its brain, it will grow that back as well. Tests have shown that it will happily accept transplants from other axolotls, including eyes and portions of brain, and rewire them to work perfectly. Because of these amazing powers of regeneration, some axolotls swim about with several more limbs than are strictly necessary.


"DUMBO" OCTOPOD


Another of the bizarre creatures encountered by the researchers was a six foot long cirrate octopod, nicknamed "Dumbo" because of the large ear-like fins it uses to swim. It was found more than a mile deep on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.