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The circle of life is a hard thing to understand, but it is vital that all things must die so that others might live. Life, death, and rebirth: The natural world has a kind of spiritual cycle to it that can be seen echoing throughout all of the world’s major religions. And every religion has its devils, so here’s what nature cooked up to fill those roles:

Magnapinna Squid

This is the Magnapinna Squid, also called the Elbow Squid because, well, it’s a squid with elbows, isn’t it? The Magnapinna Squid are so rare that the adult variety of some species still remain scientifically unclassified, as no one has ever seen them alive. Luckily, in November of 2007, a Shell Oil remotely operated vehicle was surveying the ocean floor nearly a mile and a half down, when it happened across an adult Magnapinna and took this video:

Which clearly scared the holy shit out of the men operating the camera. You can really feel their fear here, particularly when the camera starts cutting back forth between empty ocean and the image of the squid like the robot itself had to do a double take. All of the known Magnapinna are non-threatening, but then again, nobody’s really certain. Some of the species, for all modern science knows, could very well mature into precisely what they look like: The terrifying, heartless, super-intelligent monsters from Independence Day, out to colonize our planet for their own dark uses. In which case our only hope is that Will Smith can punch them all in the face as they exit their ships, then humorously converse with their unconscious husks using his Disney-style ‘hood slang.

Blanket Octopus

The Blanket Octopus, or Tremoctopus, lives in the waters of Northern Australia, because that is where crazy scary animals come from. Period. Australia has more terror per capita than Elm Street, so if something looks like a nightmarish monster, odds are it’s probably a household pet in the land down under. But what’s truly disturbing about the Blanket Octopus has little to do with the threat it poses to humans, but everything to do with the unceasing intimidation and terror that it brings to the other marine animals. You see, the Blanket Octopus is the Batman of the Ocean.

Instead of spraying ink, its defensive mechanism is to unfurl a massive, flowing, blood-red cape and fly dramatically about, scaring the shit out of all the surrounding fish like the Dark Knight terrifies criminals. But there’s more! The Blanket Octopus has also evolved immunity to one of the deadlier creatures in its domain, the Portugese Man O’War Jellyfish, but the Blanket Octopus doesn’t exactly take a “live and let live” attitude towards this immunity; it takes full advantage of it, by ripping off the jellyfish’s poisonous tentacles and then using them as weapons against other sea creatures.

That’s right: It rips off the arms off of a deadly predator and then uses them as poison-whips against its enemies!

The blanket Octopus is so fucking intimidating, it even mates like Bruce Willis kills terrorists: The male Blanket Octopus, when encountering a female, fills one of its tentacles with sperm, pulls it from its own body, and then just gives it to the female – who presumably also uses it to whip any motherfuckers that be steppin’. And hey, if that’s not enough to put the Blanket Octopus on the Disturbing list, it also looks like it totally just handed you your ass in a breakdancing contest.

Hairy Frog

The Hairy Frog, native to Central Africa, is so named for the hair-like strands found along its sides and thighs. These aren’t actually hair, though: They’re skin growths containing dozens of arteries that help the frog to stay underwater longer. But even disregarding the fact that they are covered in blood-hair, the Hairy Frog has another unique and disturbing characteristic: It has claws!

Assassin Spider

This is the Assassin Spider. It lives in Southern Africa and – surprise! – Australia.

You know what? All of the horrifying animals native to this country sure go a long way toward explaining their national motto:

“Australia: Even though nature vomited monsters all over this barren isle of Lovecraftian horror, we fucking live here anyway, because we just don’t give a shit.”

But I digress. While the Assassin Spider may look a little sinister in that picture up there – as though it is plotting some sort of nefarious scheme to finally do away with that pesky Superman – that’s not why it made the list. This is:

See, the Assassin Spider is named for the uniquely long neck that separates its head from its thorax which, in conjunction with its proportionally gigantic venom-coated fangs – up to ten times the size of a normal spider – allow it to strike like a snake does: It snaps its elongated neck out and uses those forward-thrust mandibles to spear potential prey.

So hey, fucking check that shit out!

It’s a spider with a spring-loaded giraffe neck, which it uses to hurl its unearthly face (topped with disproportionately large venomous fangs) out at you like a grappling hook made out of my childhood nightmares!

Awesome.

Yes, that is great that something like that exists. I love not sleeping for the rest of my life. I’m so glad I have an excuse to do that now. 

Toe-Biters

That horrible, gut-churning motherfucker up there is called a Giant Water Bug, or a Toe-Biter. Variations of the species can be found all across the world, from South America to East Asia. They’re even considered a delicacy by the Thai people, who must have evolved mentally-retarded mouths to think that eating something as appalling as a Toe-Biter is an acceptable thing to do. The male Toe-Biter carries the female’s eggs to gestation on its back, which results in that nauseating, slime-acne-pockmarked vomit-inducer up there.

The Toe-Biters also have one of the most painful bites of any insect on the planet. They inject large volumes of digestive saliva into their prey as soon as they strike, which immediately begins to liquefy the muscle tissue. And the term “prey,” unfortunately, often does include humans. See, its natural reflex is to play dead when threatened, where it then emits a disgusting fluid from its anus to stop predators from eating it. However, unless you’re a mouth-retard, you’re not likely trying to eat the fucking thing, and therefore won’t even detect its presence. So, it will soon spring back into life feeling threatened, where it will then proceed to rot your muscles with its stomach-juices.

So to sum up: Between making you want to puke up your soul just by looking at it, covering you in anus fluids if you accidentally swim anywhere near it, and causing you epic, mind-blowing pain with every bite, it also makes a Slurpee out of your muscles with its hell-spit because you didn’t try to eat it.

Good god, fuck those squids, Will Smith! We need you on this one, if only to diffuse the horror with your harmless arrogance and cutesy one-liners…

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