Weird Animals and Animal Traits

You're welcome. It's nice to have you here



Here ya go... The Anomalocaris



And here's a collection of the fauna from the Burgess Shale:

Giant desert centipede--Scolopendra heros. Range: California west to Louisiana, north to Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas.

The term, desert, is a misnomer for they also live in other habitats. They are closely related to S. gigantea shown above?-page 2. S. heros gets to about 6 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide including the legs.

S. heros are fast and considered agressive?-whatever that means?-and as other Scolopendra, the feet are tipped with sharp claws that make tiny incisions as they walk across your skin. Should they be upset while they do this, they will drop venom onto the cuts causing an irritation.

Bites from this centipede are very painful but not dangerous, and the symptoms will greatly lessen after 15 minutes or so.

The female lays her eggs in a clutch and coils her body around them with the feet inward. The picture shows the neonates on the mother's ventral surface as she is uncoiling.

Though this centipede is common in Texas, I have only seen two, one alive and one dead, near San Saba, Texas. (central Texas)

Just to show that I also like animals with fur:





Binturong or bearcat--Artictis binturong, Range: Southeast Asia.

Binturongs are omnivorous, arboreal viverids that grow to about six feet in length, half of which is tail. The fur is long, coarse, and black.

family Viveridae: Binturongs, meercats and mongooses, genets, and civits.

Notice that there are two binturongs in the lower photo. Judging from the photo, they can tolerate cold weather.

I just wanted to resurrect this thread with it wonderful pictures as was buried deep in the science forum.

Eastern diamondback rattlesnake—Crotalus adamanteus. Range: Southeast U.S.

This is the largest poisonous snake in this country and also one of the most dangerous because of its size. Its latin name means adamant snake with little bell. It's considered shy and not aggressive staying in a coil and standing its ground, thus its name. It may or may not rattle. I saw one recently in Florida near Gainesville in Payne's Prairie State Preserve. It was in a coil, was 3-31/2 feet long with a gray background and dark brown diamonds. It never rattled, and remained completely composed in my presence; however, this was in November on a fairly cool morning and the snake may have been sluggish due to its lower than ideal body temperature.

This website gives more information on this snake as well as links on the preferred current treatment of snakebite in the field. It also asks, "Can you guess the length of this snake? Usually people overestimate the size of snakes they see in the wild.
http://www.kingsnake.com/snakegetters/class/florida-diamondback.html

Anopholes mosquito showing position of proboscis in line with body.



Unidentified mosquito showing typical perpendicular position of proboscis of non-Anopholes mosquitoes.

Only Anopholes mosquitoes transmitt malaria and they are easy to identify by the position of the proboscis in relation to the body. Notice also that the body of the Anopholes mosquito is held at an angle to the skin when biting, whereas in other mosquitoes the body is more or less parallel to the skin; however, sometimes the hair on your skin prevents a parallel position, so to be sure observe that the proboscis of the Anopholes is in line with its body. See the above captions.

Camping in Florida this November, I was surprised to see Anopholes mosquitoes attempting to bite me. Whether they were the species that transmitt malaria is unknown, but in 2003 there were eight cases of malaria that originated in Palm Beach County, Florida. However, the malaria transmitted was the less severe species of the disease parasite.

I don't think there's any reason to be concerned, but if you live in Florida or are camping there you might be on the lookout for the Anopholes mosquito and swat them if they land on you. This may sound odd to you, but most Florida mosquito bites produce no reaction in me, so I usually don't bother swatting them—and I think I've already had West Nile—but Anopholes are somewhat worrysome.

Since we're on the subject of mosquitoes, I've stolen these two images from my thread: "More weird animals...." These images show how to discriminate a female from a male mosquito. Normally we don't see the males because they don't feed on blood.


Closeup of female mosquito feeding on human skin with palps holding the blood-filled stylet. Notice the antennae in relation to the male antennae below.

Head of male mosquito. The plumose antennae are used to both hear the vibration of the female wings and to sense the pheromones emitted by the female mosquito.

Male mosquito feeding on nectar. Males never feed on blood.

Here's a weird animal trait. Moose don't make good hood ornaments.

Not to be picky or anything, but that's not the hood of that car. I doubt the car was backing up at 70mph when it hit that moose, so I wonder how the poor animal got embedded in the back seat.

I notice a truck in the background. Did it hit the moose and send it flying into the car in front of it? Or did the car hit the moose hard enough to send it flying all the way "through" the windshield, and the interior and onto the trunk? If so, the driver may be in as rough a condition as the moose.

Nothing like a good moose story.

Ya know, I really really REALLY wish I hadn't seen that photo. Thanks cj.

Here's what it looks like when the moose survives and the car doesn't.

rosborne, I have some excellent images of a white tailed buck sticking out of a Pathfinder's windshield. The buck had jumped off the bridge and went through the windshield of the car passing underneath. Fortunately for the driver, it was on the passenger side, which was empty at the time.

I'll have to dig around and find them. I'll try to post them tomorrow.

gus, please don't.

close your eyes, k.

Actually, littlek, I will honor your request and not post the images. But you're gonna have to deal with rosborne.

Ok, post away, but start a new thread that called something like "when animal meets man: blood and gore in the animal world" and post them there. What do you think....?

This thread isn't about animal casualties.

Hmmm, and you came across these images how?