The mud flats of Japan’s Ariake Sea are home to a creature that is reportedly as delicious as it is disgusting-looking. Introducing the “Warasubo”, an eel-like fish that for obvious reasons is known as the “Alien of Ariake Sea”.

If you’re familiar with H.R. Giger’s Xenomorph (the extraterrestrial creature featured in the ‘Alien’ movies), more specifically its iconic “inner mouth”, one look at the warasubo fish is enough to explain its comparison to the fictional alien. It literally looks like the piston-like appendage that Giger’s ferocious predator uses to pierce its victim’s bodies and even metal. The warasubo is a terrifying-looking thing, especially in dried form, which only makes its use as an ingredient for ramen and other Japanese foods that much stranger.

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Cocker Spaniels are known for having long, beautiful eyelashes, but canine pair Cloe and Nena’s lashes are unusually long even for their breed, and they’ve turned the two pooches into overnight Instagram sensations.

If there was such a thing as a canine beauty influencer, Cocker Spaniel twins Cloe and Nena would most certainly fit the bill perfectly. Not only do they sport luscious eyelashes measuring a whopping 6-cm-long, but they also appear to love getting groomed by their owner, 22-year-old Vittoria Di Castri, including having mascara applied on their lashes to highlight their main features. Some people have a hard time believing the two pooches’ eyelashes aren’t fake, but Di Castri insists they are all natural.

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The male white bellbird, a 250-gram-heavy bird native to South America, produces the world’s loudest bird sound, according to a new scientific study.

Biologist Jeff Podos at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Mario Cohn-Haft of Brazil’s Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia recorded the mating call of the male white bellbird, aka Procnias albus, and concluded that it was a good nine decibels louder than the sound of the previous holder of the title “world’s loudest bird”, the screaming piha, also a species native to the Amazon rain forest. Peak sound levels recorded during the bird’s mating call reached a whopping 125.4 decibels, way above the human pain threshold and equivalent to the sound made by a pile driver.

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A mischievous horse has gained legions of fans online thanks to his ingenious way of avoiding being ridden – he drops to the ground in a very dramatic way and plays dead until the would-be rider walks away.

It’s unclear whether Jingang, “the world’s most melodramatic horse” was trained to play dead to amuse tourists, or if he just developed this talent himself, but one thing is for sure – he is really good at it. As soon as someone tries to ride him, Jingang’s legs buckle and he drops to the ground. Sometimes he even closes his eyes, leaving just his flaring nostrils as proof that he’s only playing around. Not even a tasty carrot will make Jingang break character, as demonstrated by his trainer in on e of the several videos of his antics doing the rounds online these days.

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Harlso, a five-year-old dachshund from Belfast, Northern Ireland, has risen to internet stardom thanks to one impressive talent – balancing things on his head while standing really, really still.

From glasses filled with water, to donuts and squeaky toys, there’s nothing that Harlso the “King of Balancing” can’t balance on his tiny head. It all started three years ago, when his owner, Paul Lavery, jokingly placed a squeaky toy on his head and was surprised to see the tiny canine sit as still as a statue, while trying to look up the object. Up to that point, Paul and his partner, Jen Scott, had tried teaching Harlso the usual tricks, like ‘sit’, ‘lie down’, ‘roll over’, but he just wasn’t interested. The first time he saw his pup balancing that squeaky toy in his head, Paul remembers calling his girlfriend: “Jen! Harlso has a hidden talent!”

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Staff at a popular zoo in Guanxi, China, have been accused of animal cruelty and trying to swindle visitors, after it was revealed that they had glued a basket to the carapace of a large tortoise so superstitious people could throw coins in it.

Throwing coins at specific objects, from temple bells and statues to airplane engines before a flight, is believed to bring good luck, but this superstition sometimes crosses certain boundaries. Case in point, this African spurred tortoise at Nanning Zoo, in the provincial capital of Guangxi, that had a straw basket glued to its carapace for people to throw coins into. Photos of the animal crawling around in its enclosure with the basket sticking up went viral on Chinese social media and attracted criticism both from animal lovers and those who saw the gimmick as a way to swindle zoo visitors.

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Nori, an adorable Aussiepoo mix from Seattle has become an internet sensation thanks to his expressive eyes and cute smile, which many have described as eerily human-like.

When they see Nori’s almond-shaped eyes and pink lips that curl into an almost human smile, most people can’t help but do a double-take. His owners, Kevin Hurless and Tiffany Ngo, say that, over the years they have gotten used to people’s reactions when they notice Nori’s human-like facial features, but the attention has become overwhelming since photos of their pooch went viral on social media, about a week ago.

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A male Russian Blue cat who was left to roam freely in a pet hotel in Sichuan, China, ended up needing a glucose drip to recover after mating with at least five female cats in just a few hours.

News of the cat’s exploits was shared on Chinese social media by his owner, a certain Mr. Zhao, after receiving complaints from the pet hotel staff. Apparently, workers there neglected to feed his pet Russian Blue, named Xiaopi, and simply let him out of his cage to roam freely with all the other felines at the hotel, despite being explicitly told that he had not been neutered. Zhao wrote that the staff simply opened the cats cages and went home, leaving them to their own devices for the whole night.

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In a Facebook post that went viral last week, a Thai woman shared a story about how she treated her pet goldfish and managed to save its life even though its tail and part of its body had rotted away.

In a post that ended up gathering over 110,000 likes on Facebook, Kanya Tantiwiwatkul wrote that six months ago she noticed that her pet goldfish wasn’t feeling too well. Its tail had rotted away completely, and part of its flesh had started to do the same to the point where she could already see bones sticking out. That’s when she took some photos of it and then went to an aquarium fish shop to ask for any medicine that might help. After seeing the pictures, the vendor told her that the fish had no chance and recommended that she throw it away and get a new pet. Kanya didn’t want to give up on the goldfish, so she bought some medicine and over the next six months nursed it back to health.

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We’ve featured several heartbreaking stories of faithful canines waiting for their owners in the same spot for years at a time, never to see them again, but this is one of those rare stories with a happy end. After spending four years waiting for his human masters, a lost dog in Thailand was finally reunited with them thanks to social media.

The story of Leo, a stray dog who has spent the last four years of his life waiting at an intersection in the Thai city of Khon Kaen, went viral at the beginning of this month, after a Facebook user uploaded photos of the canine, sharing that he had seen the animal sitting in the same spot every day, as if waiting for someone. They originally thought the dog had been abandoned, but then realized that he looked well-fed, so he asked around about him. It turned out that the dog had indeed been spending most of his time around that intersection, but a woman had been coming around regularly to bring him food and water. The plot thickened…

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A Pattaya veterinarian recently shared the cautionary case of an American bulldog that swallowed no less than 38 rubber ducks, 32 of which had to be surgically removed.

When Nong Aom, a young woman from Pattaya, in Thailand, bought a box of 50 yellow rubber duckies as decorations for a swimming pool, she had no idea most of them would end up in the stomach of her two-year-old American bulldog, Davel. The woman noticed something was wrong when Davel threw up a chewed up rubber toy in front of her, and went into panic mode when he proceeded to regurgitate five other half-eaten toys. When she went to check the box of rubber duckies she had bought, Aom noticed there were only 12 of them left. Assuming there much be more in Davel’s stomach, she rushed her pooch to a nearby vet clinic.

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When you think of possible emotional support animal species, alligator probably isn’t at the top of the list. But that didn’t stop one Pennsylvania man from relying on a hug-loving alligator to keep his depression in check.

65-year-old Joie Henney received approval from his doctor to use an alligator as an emotional support animal, after refusing to go on medication for depression. Named Wally, the unlikely pet reportedly likes to snuggle and loves being hugged and petted. Henney describes the five-foot-long alligator as a big softy, telling reporters that he never bit anyone and is even afraid of cats. Despite being fully aware of the fact that Wally could rip his arm off if he wanted to, the 65-year-old says he isn’t afraid of him at all.

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We’ve seen plants and insects posing as something else entirely in order to confuse their natural predators, but Macrocilix maia, a moth native to Southeastern Asia, takes mimicry to a whole new level by literally painting an entire scene on its wings.

Looking at a Macrocilix maia moth, it’s impossible to ignore the scene painted on its wings – two flies feasting on some brown spots that could be mistaken for fresh bird droppings. It’s a pretty disgusting picture, and apparently we’re not the only ones who think so. Many of this moth’s predators tend to skip on insects feasting on bird droppings, associating them with potential disease, so the natural pattern acts as a defense mechanism for the otherwise helpless insect. And as if this visual representation of flies eating bird droppings wasn’t impressive enough, the moth reportedly also gives off a pungent odour that could be mistaken for actual bird droppings.

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Cow cuddling has been around in Europe for a while, but now a farm in upstate New York is giving Americans the chance to unwind by getting up close and personal with peaceful bovines for just $75 and hour.

Mountain House Farm, a beautiful 33-acre retreat in New York, has been offering wellness sessions with horses to guests for the past nine years, but recently added cow cuddling on the menu as well. Suzanne Vullers, a Netherlands native who runs the farm with her husband, brought two cows back with her from a visit to her home country, after learning about the hearing about the health benefits of cuddling with cows. The practice has really taken off as a form of stress relief therapy in European countries like Switzerland and the Netherlands, and Vullers was surprised that it was relatively unknown in the US. So she brought Bonnie and Bella to join their friendly horses and help visitors relax as part of what Mountain House Farm calls the “Horse & Cow experience”.

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Turritopsis dohrnii, a small species of jellyfish native to the Mediterranean, is commonly known as the “immortal jellyfish, and it literally lives up to its name. Possessing the ability to revert to its a sexually immature stage instead of succumbing to an inevitable death, this tiny creature holds the secret to true biological immortality.

Humans have fantasized about immortality since the beginning of time. We have countless myths and stories about it, but until the mid-1990s we had yet to find any proof that eternal life on this earth was possible. In 1996, researchers published a study about a small species of jellyfish capable of reverting from an adult, solitary individual to its juvenile colonial state, thus cheating death and achieving potential immortality. Just as long as it wasn’t consumed by predators and it could be sustained by its environment, the jellyfish could repeat this cycle indefinitely and live forever. To this day, the immortal jellyfish remains the only known immortal animal.

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