Titan Arum, the largest flower in the world

But before you think about getting one for your special someone, there are a few things you should know. First of all the Titan Arum‘s flowering stalk reaches a height of 3 meters and has a diameter of over a meter, so it’s going to be pretty hard to carry. And second of all and, most importantly, it reeks like a decomposing dead body…that’s why it’s sometimes known as “the corpse flower

It’s native to the rainforests of central Sumatra, Indonesia and it rarely blooms in captivity, so when that actually happens it’s a pretty big deal. Haven’t seen one up close yet, but considering the smell, I consider myself lucky.

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Night sky of the underground

If you’re ever in New Zealand, don’t miss out the chance to visit Waitomo cave, the only place on Earth where the stars shine underground. Well ok, they’re not really stars, but thousands of glow-worms radiating their unmistakable luminescent light.

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Rare, albino moose sighting

Albino moose are very rare but they do exist, scientists say that 1 in 100.000 moose inherit this genetic trait. This moose has been spotted last week near the town of Whitefish, Montana, searching for food, with two other normal moose:

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Giraffe+Zebra=Gebra?

Or is it Zeraffe…? The answer is neither, this animal is called an Okapi and it was first discovered in 1901. Although scientists say it is closely related to the giraffe, it looks like the result of a love story between a giraffe and a zebra. The Okapi can only be found in the Ituri forests, north-east of Congo, in Africa.

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Arowana – The Mouth Brooder

Arowana is a tropical fish, living in the quiet waters of lakes and rivers. It varies from 60 to 120cm in length, and still manages to leap up to 3 meters above the water. The most fascinating thing about the Arowana is that it is a mouth brooder, it is capable of carrying hundreds of eggs in its mouth and, even after they hatch, the little fish live in the mother’s mouth for a considerable time before they venture out on their own.

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Ashes, the Hairless Monkey

Ashes is a 13 year old chimpanzee that has literally no hair on its body. When he was born, Ashes had a beautiful fur, but by the time he turned one, he was completely bald. Looking at his arms I can understand why a chimp could easily rip a human’s arms off if it wanted to, he’s just a huge pile of muscles.

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Meet the Real Andre, the Pet Seal

For those of you that don’t know anything about Andre, he was the star of a 90’s children’s flick about an adorable little seal that gets adopted by a young girl and spends some time as her pet. As much as I loved seeing Andre acting goofy on screen, I have to wonder if a house is really the best place to raise a seal. Apparently this woman seems to think so.

Janus, the Two-Headed Turtle

Named after the Roman god with two heads, Janus is a 10 year old, two headed Greek turtle. Here it is eating some salad leaves at the Geneva Natural History Museum.

Janus the turtle eating a salad leaf

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Odd fishes you didn’t know about

Many of you might find all fish to be disgusting, but I for one never had a problem with how they look, I even found some of them to be really interesting. But I have to say everything changed as soon as I saw these pictures, these things look like monsters out of my worst nightmares!

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