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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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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İbrahim Sedef, an experienced beekeeper from Turkey’s Black Sea Region, has come up with an ingenious way of having his honey tested by the same bears that used to steal it.

Agricultural engineer and beekeeper İbrahim Sedef had been struggling to deal with thieving bears for over four months, but nothing worked. When he tried covering his precious beehives with steel cages, the bears toppled to get to the precious honey, when he reinforced the cages with a cement base, they just dug in the ground and toppled them again. Even raising the hives higher up didn’t help as the bears just climbed up to reach them. So earlier this month, Sedef decided to stop looking for solutions and at least use the bears’ appetite for honey to his advantage.

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A zoo in southeastern France recently condemned the “stupidity” of some of its visitors after shocking photos of a 35-year-old female rhino with the names “Camille” and “Julien” scratched on its back went viral on social media.

La Palmyre Zoo, in the French city of Royan, allows visitors to touch some of the animals in its care when they approach the fence of their enclosure. It is designed to be a “moving” experience that allows visitors to appreciate the “beauty and diversity of nature”, but for some it’s simply an opportunity to display their ignorance and cruelty. Case in point, the people who shockingly used their fingernails to scratch their names onto the back of a female rhino when it approached the fence of its pen. Photos of the “signed” animal went viral online last week, sparking outrage all over the world.

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Owning a vacation home in West Palm Beach’s Ibis Golf and Country Club is a dream come true for most people, but for a couple of residents that dream quickly turned into a nightmare after their properties were taken over by dozens of black vultures.

Earlier this year, New Yorkers Anthony and Siobhan Casimano bought a vacation home in the Ibis Golf and Country Club for 702,000 dollar, but when they decided to vacation there, they were shocked to find it had actually been taken over by dozens, if not hundreds of black vultures. They were practically living in the pool area, had destroyed the property’s screened enclosures and did not appear too happy to share the place with its human owners. They pecked at their car, and vomited when they got too close, as a means of self defense. Despite their best efforts to have the issue resolved, the Casimanos remain unable to drive the vultures away and reclaim their expensive property.

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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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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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Xafi and Auri are two feline sisters taking Instagram with their contrasting neat, silver coats and mesmerizing ocean eyes.

Instagram has no shortage of animal superstars, from the angry-looking Pompous Albert, to Ghost, the singing samoyed, but when it comes to the most beautiful turquoise eyes to get lost in, there’s no competing with Xafi and Auri. The so-called “American Type” Russian Blue Cats share the most beautiful eyes you’ve ever seen, rivaled only by those of fellow Instagram stars Iris and Abyss.

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