Fun facts and musings - you guys would not believe some of the crazy shit the animal kingdom is capable of

So, animals are often thought of as inferior to humans, which is understandable since our brains are so much more developed then theres.
But who needs brains when you can live forever? or make other animals spontainisly combust? or punch faster then a bullet? or have a byakugan? or being able to go toe to toe with god?

Yeah, theres some animals out there in this world, and they make us humans look like shit...

Like the mantis shrimp.

This little shit might look fairly flamboyant, but as far as animals go, you dont want to mess with this bastard.
Basically its a shrimp with mad eye sight and stuff (far better then humans, they can see in our spectrum as well as ultraviolent and infared and stuff, and can see 12 primary colors instead of our 3 apparently), you can look up the other details about it, but the main feature of these shirmps is their claws.



What a lovely pair of eyes you have...



Some specis have spear claws, others have what are known as 'smashers' and thats what they do.

They can punch with an acceleration of 10,400 G's (whatever the hell that means) and their punch can move at 23 meters per second from a standstill. (roughly 83 kilometers per hour if my calculations are correct-sound like a nerd)

The acceleration of a .22 calibre bullet basically.
The claw itself is more or less a hammer claw, and it has a sharp inside, but that doesnt matter when you can punch like a gun.
As you can imagine, this is a ridiculous amount of force and can pretty much kill anything in its size range that it hits (remember this is underwater, you probably cant even punch hard enough underwater to even hurt yourself)

If that wasnt enough, the strike creates whats known as a cavitation bubble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavitation) basically it creates a vacuum or whatever, and then the bubble collapes in on itself.

This particular bubble created by the mantis shrimp has a force of 1500 newtons, again comparable to a bullet.

The force of this collapsing bubble can kill animals outright by itself, failing that it usually knocks them unconcious, so even if this the claw misses, the pain doesnt.

Of course the force of this bubble will still hit anything that gets hit by the claw anyways, so basically, your done.

You wont usually see one of these suckers in an aqaurium because, while it is uncommon for them to do so, these bad boys can break the glass in one shot.

Theres a similar shrip called the bullet shrimp, which also creates thie cavitation bubbles and, well basically it shoots pressure at other animals to kill them.

My interpritation of a bullet shrimp.

So, whats better then having gun claws with pressure bubbles?

How about being a japanese honey bee?

So, you wouldnt really pick it at first since bees and hornets are pretty much the same thing, but in japan, bee's and hornets FUCKING HATE EACH OTHER, and are always fighting.

kinda reminds me of the history of asia (ohohoho I went there!)

They both pretty much exsist just to kill each other.

Now before I go on, I want you to keep in mind that the hornets in japan are ridiculous, the largest in the world, and cause more deaths among humans that all the other animals in japan combinded (and theres some crazy shit going on in japan)

So, how does the japanese honey bee deal with sass from these hornets?

well when the hornets send a scout out to find the bee's, the bee's lure said scout hornet into their nest.

Then they all pile into the nest, as many as possible, until there is literally no room to move at all.

Then they all start to vibrate their wings and very quickly the middle of this shitfest gets heated up to 117 degrees farenheit, or 47 degrees celcius, which will burn the wasp to a crisp.



shit...



Sure maybe a few bee's die (and thats only if things go wrong, since the bee's own limit is closer to 50, so even the ones in the middle can usually survive) but they get the job done. (talk about going out with a bang... except there is no bang... well its kinda like... well... lets see you do better then)

Next time you think your hard just because you went into a mosh pit, why dont you go pick a fight with some of these bad dudes.

So, whats better then being able to kill people by setting yourself and them on fire?
how about not dying at all.

Humanity has always dreamed of, and even searched for, immortality.
But its been under their noses the entire time.

There is a specis of jellyfish known as the 'Immortal Jellyfish'.

Now you'll have to forgive their unoriginal name, because hey, at least somebody finally gave an animal a name that is actually accurate.

I'm looking at you flying snakes, and dragonflys, and wild ass's (just a donkey), and sand dollars, and killdeers (just a tiny little bird), and rabid wolf spiders (actually very docile) and so on.



At least the Yeti Crab deserves its name... kind of...



This jellyfish is pretty normal, except that it can age backwards, and then forwards again, and backwards again, infinitly as much as it likes.

That doesnt mean it cant die though, since its still vunerable to disease, being hunted, and being too stupid to actually keep itself alive, but its possible for them to live forever. (well untill global warming kills them, lol)

Who knows how old some of them are nowadays?



Simply wear one of these on your head, and you'll live forever.



Not only that, scientist have been noticing an increase in their numbers lately, as well as the fact they are no longer happy being in the one spot and are spreading across the entire world.

Brace yourselves kids, they're coming.

Now most people are afraid of spiders, and I dont blame them, but what those people probably dont realize, is that while you can run, you cant hide.

Not from the jumping spider anyways.

Their eyes admittently arent as good as the mantis shrimp, but they are still pretty nuts.
They can see 4 primary colors, what that means is that they can see in ultraviolet.
Now, we humans use ultra-violet light to determine many things we wouldnt normally be able to.

We use them to find things that are invisible to the naked eye, things like blood, and semen (I'd make a law and order joke there, but theres already enough of those to go around)

At some point, people figured out that all those old ancient greek statues were actually painted and not white as they appear today, yeah they used ultra-violet light to figure that one out.

So jumping spiders can see things that are normally invisible, as well as being able to see through time, they can see camoflagued animals as if they were strobe lights, and unless I am mistaken, have xray vision.

Yeah their eyes are pretty good.

Oh, they can also see in 360 degrees.

Now whats left...? oh yeah something about an animal going toe to toe with god?
Well thats abit of an exaduration, you'll have to forgive me.

Theres another animal that probably deserves a spot on that 'animals that dont live up to their name' list above.

Believe it or not, theres an animal called the Jesus Christ Lizard.

Now it sure as shit doenst live up to its name, it cant do anything that jesus could do.

Well, except for one thing.

The Jesus Christ lizard can walk on water.

Well, it can run on water anyways.

I wonder if it was named the Jesus Christ lizard for this ability, or simply because thats exactly what you'll say when you see this happening in real life?
either way, theres not really much else to say about these guys, so I wont.

Now there is one more animal I'm going to write about, but its sooooo good it gets its own post.
Till next time ;)