There are a lot of strange creatures on Earth. Some look like they’re from another world, others look like they escaped from scene out of a horror film.
A lot of people find sharks terrifying, but the Goblin Shark looks like something that would make you want to avoid the ocean for the rest of your life. The Goblin Shark is pink, with a mouth that shoots out of it’s face. The shark can reach up to 3.84 meters long. It’s so strange that it does not fit in any other shark family. Don’t worry, the odds of you running into this creepy creature are slim, it prefers the deep sea.
For zombie fans, the next oddity should be right up your ally. Technically this strange thing is a fungus, but I believe it belongs on this list. The Cordyceps, a parasitic fungus, infect insects, turning them into real life zombies by controlling its host’s actions in the name of spreading it’s spores. After the host dies the fungus branches out of the creature to form arms so that its spores can infect its next unsuspecting victim. Believe it or not, the victim in this photo was a Tarantula.
The next horrifying critter comes form the water. This nasty creature is a Lamprey, which can be found both in the Atlantic Ocean and rivers. It’s hard to believe that the slimy Lamprey is actually classified as a jawless-fish, with 38 different species, 18 species being parasitic. The parasitic species are real vampires, it hooks on to fish with its tooth-filled mouth and suck its victim’s blood. The Lamprey in the picture below was caught in the New Jersey River.
Most of us have seen the 1997 film Anaconda, and let’s face it, a giant man-eating snake would terrify anyone. No, there are no snakes of that size alive today (that we know of), but there once was. The “TITANOBOA” died out around sixty million years ago and was the size of a school bus (pictured below). There is a team currently finishing a replica of the giant snake, at the Smithsonian now. As for the snakes alive now, the Anaconda grows the largest of any other snake species, reaching more than twenty-eight feet long, but it’s hard to judge how big they can actually get in the wild. At the moment the record for largest snake belongs to a pet Asiatic Reticulated Python by the name of “Medusa” (seen in the video below), at the length of 25 feet.
Meet Medusa
Move over Jaws, there’s a new shark in town. Divers off the coast of Mexico’s Guadalupe Island not only documented a twenty-plus foot long in 2014, they got video footage of the pregnant behemoth. Meet “Deep Blue”, the largest Great White to ever be caught on film. The footage is absolutely incredible. The breath-taking shark, swam around the divers for a long time, even letting one diver get a “high-five”. Divers have encountered Deep Blue on several separate occasions. Keep in mind that she is pregnant, with from two to ten pups. Each pup is born around five feet long. Deep Blue may awaken the fear of the ocean for some, but I find she has the exact opposite affect on me.
One of my favorite movies is the 1990 horror film Arachnophobia. I understand, a lot of people are a scared of spiders, I’m not one of them. If fact I had a pet Chilean Rose Tarantula named “Harper” for thirteen years. Haper was the size of my hand when she passed away, but she was far from the largest species on record. That honor goes to the South American Goliath Birdeater Tarantula. The “Birdeater” is roughly the size of a puppy. It’s body measures around 30 centimeters long, with two inch long fangs, okay that is a little scary.
If you’re from the South, you’ve heard the term “Hogzilla”, used to describe a monstrous Wild Boar. Reports have been made of Hogzillas weighing upwards of 1500 pounds. Now add huge tusks and a bad attitude, like the one depicted in Chris Sun’s upcoming horror film Boar. For those of you who don’t know very much about wild boar, let me fill you in. These beasts will eat anything from corn to animals. They are destructive and breed like wild fire. It’s not uncommon to hear of hunters who have been killed, or even partially consumed by small hogs. This Hozilla was killed near Delta, Alabama. It weighed in at 1,051 pounds and measured 9-feet 4-inches long. That’s a lot of bacon.
Each week new animals will be added to our list. I apologize if any of these creatures actually give you nightmares.
