Unlike the oceans, almost every corner of Earth's land has been visited by people. Using the latest technology, scientists can even explore remote places that are difficult for us to travel to, such as areas that are very cold, very wet, very dry, or very high.
But take a regular person a bit further away from their home, and we will soon start feeling as if we're entering the great unknown. Terra incognita for our knowledge and experience.
So in an attempt to accentuate the beauty of Mother Nature, let's take a look at the wonderful creatures who inhabit it. The Twitter account 'Weird Animals' is excellent for such a task. It posts photos of species most have never even heard of, and they really help to achieve the goal of 'Weird Animals,' specified in the account's bio section, which is to highlight the wonders of evolution and the extraordinary diversity of life.
More info: Twitter
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How sad, that the first time I am finding out about this cute animal is to learn it is going to be extinct. :'-(
What a cute lil thing. So heartbreaking to know it won't be too long until they are extinct. I hope there is help for them to try and increase their numbers.
Why is every picture an individual completely dry and out of the water? They're even cuter when they aren't actively dying because the photo op takes priority over their survival.
It's a dolphin. They breathe out of the water... Also they're all still wet?
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Gila Monster (endangered lizard). This not-so-cute lizard is nearly extinction, and yet it has already provided major advances in medicine, with more advances on the way. But science via Gila lizard may stop if this lizard goes extinct or if in-breeding problems with falling populations distorts beneficial traits. 1) Diabetes Treatments The poisonous saliva of this lizard was studied and resulted in one of the most effective (and profitable) diabetes treatments. The company who made that discovery made a mint! http://www.type2nation.com/treatment/gila-monsters-a-secret-weapon-against-diabetes/ 2) Parkinson's Treatment The Gila monster's unique saliva has also shown benefits to treat and even slow down the progression of Parkinson's disease. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/biotech/sd-me-exenatide-parkinsons-20170803-story.html
Biodiversty is critical for science, and we need large, healthy populations in many areas to ensure survival. Human Over-Population is NOT leaving room for nature, not near enough protected areas. See why YOU need to care (for your own quality of life). The Search for the Elephant Gene https://www.cityofhope.org/blog/the-search-for-the-elephant-gene&redesign=true We've eliminated 98.5% of the African Elephant's biological library because Human Over-Population pressures has resulted in massive loss of habitat and more hunting. 200 years ago, African elephants numbered 27 million. In 2022, their numbers have fallen to about 400,000. Only 1.5% of the population they had in year 1800. The cure for cancer may die out as African elephants are projected to be extinct in the wild in 10 to 15 years! Genetic in-breeding may foul up the cancer genes that elephants have that prevents elephants from getting Cancer, which is extremely rare in elephants because of those protective genes.
Elephants are vilified in some parts of Africa because they go into villages and eat the crops. Villages built on elephant territory. Food is scarce for both humans and elephants. And this results in the death of both. I love elephants with all of my heart, and hate that they kill over 500 people a year, but there are extreme losses for the elephants as well. Over 140 Park Rangers have died protecting them from poachers. We have to find a solution.
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Biotech is the greatest advancement in human history, YET, human over-population and the endless impacts is pushing the future of Biotech into extinction. With each ecosystem wiped out or damaged, with each species falling into extinction, with low wild species populations causing in-breeding defects, with habitat losses and fragmentation, all those impacts cause the connections between species to collapse. Scientists do NOT just dream up solutions. Scientist study nature to see how it works. Biotech studies how living organisms work and how they work together with other species. If we wipe out Biodiversity, Biotech dies out too.
That's so sad. Breed them like mad all over the world then put them back!
If only - unfortunately, only two vaquita have ever been able to be caught, and they both died immediately of panic. Scientists are making efforts to replicate their DNA, but it’s pretty clear vaquita cannot survive in captivity and there are none in captivity. It’s a really sad situation
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No, with such small numbers there is sadly no chance to save the species. They are basically already extinct.
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That's probably the most adorable sea creature I've ever seen. That's really sad there are only a few left.
It's like a dolphin and a shark but... Why is it going extinct if it's that cute?
Just because it's cute means it cannot go extinct? Human greed and ignorance is why this creature has almost been wiped off the planet, like most other endangered species.
Load More Replies... A dried out sample of a dead species, or a caged species, or a species in a zoo does NOT reveal the same properties as that species would display if it lived within a healthy, wild ecosystem. That's a fact. The chemicals that species create and use, their behaviors, their ability to survive is radically altered if they are in zoos or cages, and certainly if they are a dead, dried sample in a lab. This reality is seen when poison frogs are put in labs and are not eating their natural foods. The unique properties of their poison changes, and the benefits that scientists can see in the wild frog's chemical properties are different in the lab frog or are lost entirely. Poisons are often found to be very useful for medical applications, like snake poisons that were adapted and are routinely used in heart surgeries. Or Gila monster saliva (poisonous) which was studied, adapted, and found to be one of the most effective diabetes treatments ever! See next post for the cool articles.
In 2022, there are 8 Billion humans (and 25% or 2 Billion people live at some level of poverty today). The global charity “Oxfam” states poverty is much higher at 33% (2.6 Billion poor people). 2 Billion POOR people is equal to the ENTIRE WORLD population of 1927! How is this progress? It is NOT! Each high tech solution is quickly over-whelmed by consumer demands and rising populations and more poverty. The U.S. (in 2022) has 334 million people (4.2% of the world population). But the U.S. uses 25% of Global resources. Thus, the U.S. has impacts of an average nation of 2 Billion people. More impacts than China (1.45 Billion) or India (1.410 Billion and soon to over take China).. But, as more countries modernize, they too will consume skyrocketing levels of resources. Human Population x Resources Used per Person = Environmental Impacts. It's that simple.
Human Over-Population Impacts. This Global study is 5 years old (2017). Since that time, humans have ADDED 450 million MORE to the population, which is approximately equal to adding the COMBINED 2022 population of the U.S. (334 million) and Mexico (134 million) in just 5 years. That is insane! Look at the impacts we are having! World Biomass Distribution Study (2017)-The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study
too many people fishing. lots of unintended harm to sea life, dolphins, turtles, whales, seals, get caught in fishing gear and nets and drowned. Pollution too, oil spills, plastics getting into the animals killing them. 8 Billion humans this year, 16x more people than 420 years ago when the world had 500 million (1/2 Billion) in year 1600, which is about the combined population of the U.S. and Brazil. As of 2017, Human Biomass was was over 8x higher than all remaining WILD Mammal species. Meaning that human biomass in 2017 was over 8x higher that ALL remaining 6000(+) WILD land mammals and WILD marine mammals, COMBINED!). It is a lie when reports seem to show that wildlife is flourishing. Vaguita will likely go extinct as human population continues to go higher, projected to be nearly 11 Billion people by year 2100 (78 years or about 1 lifetime away). That is adding nearly 3 Billion more humans, equal to ADDING the world population of 1960 to the current 8 Billion.
They only live in one portion of one gulf, and 12 is an estimate from wildlife conversationists and scientists that roam the gulf to get pictures and hopefully info on the porpoises
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A little more knowledge: last I heard, the only known predator was fishermen. I have also heard the number of 50 just as often as I have heard 12. As far as I know, the only useful part of this fish is the bladder, which is illegal to trade or sell. The rest of the corpse is left rotting on the beach. A documentary show called 60 minutes did an episode on this a while ago, don't remember how long though.
Critically endangered? At twelve left, I think that counts as nearly extinct. Poor things. They're so cute.
Aww! How sweet and beautiful 😍..never knew about them! Sad! We need to save them somehow!!
They need to start a breeding conservation plan... but it may be too late. 😢
No, they live in a relatively average-depth gulf and that gulf only. Vaquita have only ever been spotted in the curve of the gulf of CA.
Load More Replies... If we have to keep marine mammals in captivity, this would be a good candidate: Safe to reproduce and being so tiny the tanks might not be so bad.
They tried this... I think they were only able to capture 1, and it became so stressed it had to be released.
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It''s way too few to breed them. This species is dead.
Load More Replies... Climate Warming: Having 1 fewer child reduces your carbon footprint 71x more than eating NO meat your entire life. Having 1 fewer child is 11x more effective at reducing your carbon footprint compared to doing ALL 4 major lifestyle changes ALL your life (Recycling, eating NO meat, living without a car, taking 1 less long distance airplane trip per year). The best way to reduce your carbon footprint is one the government isn’t telling you about By Sid Perkins Jul. 11, 2017 , 4:30 PM https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/best-way-reduce-your-carbon-footprint-one-government-isn-t-telling-you-about
Look at the FACTS. Scroll down and look chart showing the exponential rise of Human population. This is happening despite slowing birth rates since 1968. But each year births outnumber deaths, so human numbers keep rising higher. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ World Population (Past and Present) https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/ Population Projections by year thru year 2100 http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-projections/ Human Over-Population is the #1 Evil on the planet. Humans have no effective predators. NO plagues, NO wars, NO famines have ever kept human numbers down for very long. IF we want a Biodiverse (and happy) world, then we humans have to choose to NOT have so many kids. Now at 8 Billion humans (25% or 2 Billion in poverty today), we need to push for 0 to 1 child per couple until this curve flattens and falls to 1 Billion or less. If you want high quality life, that is the solution.
Actually, it’s dead. The pictures vaquita have either been de tangled from (illegal) fishing nets that have been caught or have suffered a panic attack and died at the hands of wildlife conservationists.
Load More Replies...As you can see, our planet really is home to an incredible diversity of creatures.
According to the team at Our World in Data, a scientific online publication that focuses on large global problems such as poverty, disease, hunger, climate change, existential risks, and inequality, there are several ways we can answer the question of how much life is on Earth.
We could, for instance, count the number of species, population sizes or the number of individual organisms, but these metrics can make it difficult to compare between taxa: small organisms may have a large population but still account for a very small percentage of Earth's organic matter.
and this solves the ancestral question: they are black with white stripes
For a meaningful comparison, we can, instead, look at biomass—it is measured in tonnes of carbon as it is a key building-block of life. In this case:
- plants – mainly trees – dominate Earth: they account for more than 82% of biomass;
- surprisingly in second place is the life we cannot see: tiny bacteria sum up to 13%;
- whilst our perceptions are often focused on the animal kingdom, it accounts for only 0.4%;
- humans make up just 0.01% of biomass, so we'd need about 70 trillion of us to match the Earth’s collective biomass.
These are the kittens! Adults look fierce and fabulous. caracal-62...47ee80.jpg 
But if we want to get more specific, then we can start with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. It tracks the number of described species and updates the figure annually based on the latest work of taxonomists.
In 2021, it listed 2.13 million species on the planet, including 1.05 million insects, over 83,000 mollusks, over 11,000 birds, and over 6,000 mammals. These figures, however, might be a bit too high. This is because some species end up being synonyms – the description of already-known species, simply given a separate name.
There is a continual evaluation process to remove synonyms (and most are eventually), but often, species are added at a faster rate than synonyms can be found and removed.
To get a sense of how big this problem is, consider this: one study estimated that around 20% of the described species were undiscovered duplicates. The paper estimated that the 1.9 million described species at the time was actually closer to 1.5 million unique species.
If we were to assume this 20% figure to be true, our 2.12 million described species might actually be closer to just 1.7 million.
Either way, academics believe that these numbers are still an underestimate. One of the most widely-cited figures comes from Camila Mora and colleagues. They suggest that there are around 8.7 million species on Earth today, with 2.2 million of them living in the ocean.
As Robert May said in a paper published in Science:
"If some alien version of the Starship Enterprise visited Earth, what might be the visitors' first question? I think it would be: 'How many distinct life forms—species—does your planet have?' Embarrassingly, our best-guess answer would be in the range of 5 to 10 million eukaryotes (never mind the viruses and bacteria), but we could defend numbers exceeding 100 million, or as low as 3 million."
At first, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but the fact that there are so many species that we've yet to discover has real consequences for our ability to understand changes in global biodiversity and the rate of species extinctions. If we don't know that certain species exist, we also don't know that they might have, or will soon, disappear. Some animals will inevitably go extinct before we realize that they existed.
Not rodents, closely related to moles, exclusively found in Africa, lifespan of 4 - 5 years.
I hope they aren't endangered because of us. Because how could anyone hurt something so beautiful?
This is the only picture I have found where it's body is flat. Yet the picture looks real, so I guess the snake is able to flatten if the are scaling an edge and need to keep balanced.
Note: this post originally had 130 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
I didn't see the Dumbo octopus on here. Please check them out they are so cute
The ravine trapdoor spider creeps me out. Ugh I wish I could unsee that!
So are we voting for things because we genuinely had no idea they existed? Or because they are cute? Regardless, I’ve been watching wildlife documentaries for decades and it still blows my mind that there are creatures out there I have never heard of. I’m looking at you, bobbit worm, Blue planet 2017.
Pro tip: If you want something otherworldly for your next sci-fi media (book, movie, game, what have you) look no further than your own planet!
Actually I found least of the animals weird, but I follow that Twitter account now.
Such a resplendent list... It also confirms my suspicion that my demise will more than likely happen whilst trying to pet something I shouldn't...
I didn't see the Dumbo octopus on here. Please check them out they are so cute
The ravine trapdoor spider creeps me out. Ugh I wish I could unsee that!
So are we voting for things because we genuinely had no idea they existed? Or because they are cute? Regardless, I’ve been watching wildlife documentaries for decades and it still blows my mind that there are creatures out there I have never heard of. I’m looking at you, bobbit worm, Blue planet 2017.
Pro tip: If you want something otherworldly for your next sci-fi media (book, movie, game, what have you) look no further than your own planet!
Actually I found least of the animals weird, but I follow that Twitter account now.
Such a resplendent list... It also confirms my suspicion that my demise will more than likely happen whilst trying to pet something I shouldn't...
