Strange but true animals

[kenjib]

A thread on the Lejendary Adventures board pointed out the existence of goblin sharks. What a strange creature! Perhaps some of the stranger creatures of our real world can inspire D&D monsters:

http://www.postmodern.com/~fi/sharkpics/ellis/goblin.htm
http://www.amonline.net.au/fishes/fishfacts/fish/mowstoni.htm
http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~bz050/goblinshark.html

Any other strange and inspiring creatures?

 

[Harlock]

Strange but true? Mimic Octopus. I saw a special a couple of times on the television about them. Simply astounding creatures. They can imitate a sponge, a flatfish (sort of a flounder-looking thing), a Lionfish, a Sea snake... several others. Studies are still being done on these rare little super intelligent gems. Do a google search on them and if you can, find a TV show about them because they are remarkable.

 

[kenjib]

Wow, I found some cool stuff on Mimic Octopi with a Google search. Very fascinating, and since octopi have demonstrated pretty good intelligence, possibly including tool use it's interesting to see how they might intentionally mimic other creatures depending on the nature of the threat.

 

[Tonguez]

My favourite weird animal is the naked mole rat

 

[bwgwl]

the naked mole rat is a good one -- mammals with a social structure similar to social insects.

i've always been partial to the foosa -- a predator from Madagascar. they are related to mongooses and weasels but they're the about the size of a small mountain lion. they can climb trees as good as monkeys (they feed primarily on arboreal lemurs). imagine a dire foosa!

[edit]OK, i don't know what's weirder; the mimic octopus, or that when googling for information about it i discovered TONMO -- The Octopus News Magazine Online... i didn't realize there were that many cephalopods surfing the 'net...

 

[bwgwl]

...octopi have demonstrated pretty good intelligence, possibly including tool use...

did you see that news story earlier in the week about an octopus at a zoo in Austria that learned how to unscrew mason jars to get at its food? fascinating. for a creature without a backbone, octopi seem darn intelligent.

 

[demiurge1138]

Odd animals, eh? Let's see...

The canindru is a tiny parasitic catfish in the Amazon that swims up its host's urethra.

The ternec is a small hedgehog-like creature living in Madagascar that rubs toads on its spines for the venom.

In Africa, there is a hawk that preys almost exclusivly on flamingos.

The Amazon river has otters that grow to be the size of a human being.

And then there's the aye-aye. This lemur has a long finger used for prying into holes in tree bark. They have massive eyes, prominent inscisors and shaggy black hair. They look like a Tim Burton prototype for ET.

Demiurge out.

 

[Samnell]

The canindru is a tiny parasitic catfish in the Amazon that swims up its host's urethra.

Isn't it the one that lodges there, thus providing one of the very few circumstances when the recommended course of treatment is a peonotomy?

 

[WayneLigon]

did you see that news story earlier in the week about an octopus at a zoo in Austria that learned how to unscrew mason jars to get at its food? fascinating. for a creature without a backbone, octopi seem darn intelligent.

They do seem very intelligent. A friend of mine had one in his salt-water aquarium and had to keep finding new ways to secure the lid to the tank because the octopus apparently wanted nothing more than to escape. It killed itself that way, because it finally managed to get out and crawl (??) over twenty feet to the kitchen, where it died.

 

[Aeolius]

A thread on the Lejendary Adventures board pointed out the existence of goblin sharks...

I used goblin-sharks as the basis for my sea goblins (blinogo). I used the coelacanth as the basis for my sea bugbears (kolocanth), etc etc