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The Most Alien-Looking Creatures Earth Has Produced

blessmycottonsocks

blessmycottonsocks

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I'm not counting those freakish creatures that evolved back in the Cambrian epoch, but was thinking of the most alien-looking animals around today.

Here's my top 3.

In 3rd place, the Devil's Flower Mantis. Thank goodness they don't grow to human size:

mantis.png


2nd, my favourite fish (and Predator lookalike), the Sarcastic Fringehead (which has its own thread here somewhere):

sarcastic fringehead.png



But my no.1 for a decidedly other-worldly animal has to be the Brazilian Treehopper, which looks like something off a Roger Dean album cover.

treehopper.png


Any others?
 
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blessmycottonsocks said:
I'm not counting those freakish creatures that evolved back in the Cambrian epoch, but was thinking of the most alien-looking animals around today.

Here's my top 3.

In 3rd place, the Devil's Flower Mantis. Thank goodness they don't grow to human size:

View attachment 65324

2nd, my favourite fish (and Predator lookalike), the Sarcastic Fringehead (which has its own thread here somewhere):

View attachment 65325


But my no.1 for a decidedly other-worldly animal has to be the Brazilian Treehopper, which looks like something off a Roger Dean album cover.

View attachment 65327

Any others?
Click to expand...
the mantis is gorgeous
 
Kerygmachela:

21091022_Kerygmachela_kierkegaardi.png


Kerygmachela kierkegaardi is a gilled lobopodian from the Cambrian Stage 3 aged Sirius Passet Lagerstätte in northern Greenland. Its anatomy strongly suggests that it, along with its relative Pambdelurion whittingtoni, was a close relative of radiodont (anomalocaridids) and euarthropods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerygmachela


Hallucigenia:

H._sparsa.jpg


Hallucigenia is a genus of Cambrian animal resembling worms, known from articulated fossils in Burgess Shale-type deposits in Canada and China, and from isolated spines around the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucigenia
 
It's like a real-life Sarlacc.
 
The Pompeii Worm (Alvinella pompejana) is an extremophile that lives in hydrothermal vents in the deep Pacific Ocean.
It was first discovered in 1980 off the Galápagos Islands by French marine biologists Daniel Desbruyères and Lucien Laubier and was named for its astonishing heat-tolerance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvinella_pompejana

worm1.png
worm2.png

worm3.png
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
The Pompeii Worm (Alvinella pompejana) is an extremophile that lives in hydrothermal vents in the deep Pacific Ocean.
It was first discovered in 1980 off the Galápagos Islands by French marine biologists Daniel Desbruyères and Lucien Laubier and was named for its astonishing heat-tolerance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvinella_pompejana

View attachment 66211View attachment 66212
View attachment 66213
Click to expand...
The pompeii worm is certainly alien looking enough. However, I think the first two pictures are of a worm in the genus nereis, and the bottom one is a scale worm. I'm no expert, but I've dated them both.
 
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