Cymothoa exigua

Cymothoa Exigua, an ocean-dwelling parasite in the pacific ocean, primarily feeds on the Rose Snapper. And that’s not a picture of it being eaten up there. See, Cymothoa Exigua feeds by attching itself to the base of the tongue and draining the blood until it eventually atrophies and falls off. At which point the parasite replaces the tongue – actually functioning as the appendage – thus ensuring that the fish cannot get rid of it without starving to death.

It’s the only parasite that actually replaces a body part in its host, and apart from making fishing trips rather disturbing when one finds themselves trying to remove a hook from the mouth of the monster from Aliens, it also sets a terrifying bar for all the other parasites out there. I’m not saying that this trend will continue, or that you can expect to find your penis replaced by segmented translucent millipede in the near future, I’m just saying that if that does happen, you should probably run to the doctor immediately, provided that your legs have not been replaced by tapeworms in the interim.

Vampire Moth

This is the Vampire Moth, and it doesn’t need a lot of explaining. It is a moth that sucks your blood. And that is terrible. You worry about bloodsucking from mosquitoes, leeches, and lawyers, and now you have to worry about it from moths too? No longer can you say “don’t worry, honey, it’s just a moth!” and be the brave soldier for your loved ones. No, now you’re the one screaming “vampire!” and then hiding under your bed with a cross everytime you see a butterfly.

They’re a recently discovered species, and the blood-sucking mechanism is considered a “logical evolution” from the fruit piercing mechanism present in many other moths. Take note: Everything that eats fruit is going to “logically evolve” into a vampire. I didn’t fucking say that; that’s science. Take it up with them.

Hatchet Fish

This is the Deep Sea Hatchetfish, so named for the hatchet-like body shape. It grows to about four inches in size, and like most deep sea creatures, it is bioluminescent. Unlike other deep sea dwellers, however, the hatchet fish has the unique ability to deeply unsettle you for the rest of your years by simply turning to face you:

Whereupon it ceases to be a fish and instead becomes a phantom escaped from the Room of Lost Souls, here to haunt the living out of jealousy for their flesh., While objectively I know that the Deep Sea Hatchetfish makes no particular sound, I swear to god that I can hear that thing screaming right now, and I’m pretty sure I only have 7 days to live because of it.

Sydney Funnel Web Spider

The Sydney Funnel Web Spider hails from the land of the Plagued Mother Of Horrors – The Kingdom of the Queen of Monsters, The World of Ancient and Unspeakable Horror – where old and terrifying gods sleep eternally, breathing their noxious miasma of choking fear across this world:

The land of Australia.

It’s one of the deadliest spiders in the world, and unfortunately that old adage “it’s more afraid of you than you are of it,” does not apply to the Syndney Funnel Web Spider: It’s not fucking afraid of you at all. It’s infamous for being one of the most “notoriously aggressive” species, and it will attack immediately when provoked. So no, it’s not “more afraid of you than you are of it,” unless you’ve suffered head trauma that has rendered you functionally incapable of registering fear, or are Daredevil.

The venom of the Syndney Funnel Web Spider can kill you quite painfully within 40 minutes, and since you can find the males wandering incessantly during the summer months, frequently  living in garages, yards, and houses all around Sydney, it probably will. Smashing it is ill-advised, because it’s got little spider rage issues and if you miss, it will probably come after you like Mel Gibson in Payback. But drowning is also not a good idea: The Syndney Funnel Web Spider can survive a full day immersed in water, and are also frequently found in swimming pools.

So hey, vacation in Australia! If you’re too scared of sharks to go in the ocean, take a dip in the pool where you only have to risk the word’s most deadly, snorkeling, furious spider.

Giant Anteater

The Giant Anteater, as anybody with reading comprehension skills can tell you is both giant and an anteater. It’s found mostly in central and southern America, and it’s quite cute in a fucked-up-elongated-face kind of way, like Sarah Jessica Parker. Not so cute? These things:

That’s the claw of a giant anteater laid next to the claw of a Velociraptor. You remember Velociraptors, right? From Jurassic Park? There was that really scary speech about how they use these enormous claws to disembowel you, remember? Yeah, the giant anteater is just like that , except for one thing:

The top claw up there – the bigger one – that’s the anteater.

It uses these god damn gigantic claws to kill jungle cats, which are its only natural predator. It can swipe quite rapidly, using a sweeping scythe-like motion to slash at predators or, if cornered, will grab enemies in a “bear hug,” and squeeze the claws through their body. So is it still adorable now that you know it’s basically an Iron Maiden for jaguars?

Follow Robert on Twitter, on Facebook, or his own site, I Fight Robots. It’s been fun everybody! This is the last of my blogs here at Atom, and I hope you enjoyed them.

Giant Humboldt Squid

 
The Giant Humboldt Squid averages about 6 feet long and 200 pounds, but have been found at heights up to 14 feet long and weighing over seven-hundred pounds. They’re more commonly known as the Red Demon Squid, and that name does not have a backstory that needs explaining: They are usually red, and they are fucking demons. Their tentacles are lined with around 1,200 individual sucker disks, each one in turn lined with around 25 razor-sharp teeth, giving them a grand total of 30,000. They’re incredibly aggressive, hunt in packs, use stealth tactics to capture prey, and display remarkable intelligence. Basically, they’re modern-day underwater Velociraptors.

With 10 legs.

And 1200 fucking mouths.

 
And they hate you – oh god do they hate you.

They’re known as man-eating squid, and that’s not hyperbole. They don’t eat people rarely, like an accident; they do it all the damn time, like a hobby. They live in the Sea of Cortez, and nearly every local fisherman knows somebody who’s fallen overboard to be devoured by these things within moments. Which officially makes Sea of Cortez fisherman the worst job on earth: Sure, you can lose a hand doing construction, or be blinded working with chemicals, but what other profession considers a good day to be one when nobody gets wrapped in a blanket of carnivorous mouths and hauled off into the depths by monsters?

Shocking Pink Dragon Millipede

 
Aw…what are you doing here, little guy? Did you get lost? This is a list for horrible, scary animals – not just weird little dudes. You say you look like a French tickler for elves? You’ve got a point there, I suppose, but I still don’t think you belo- oh, you shoot cyanide? What? Like, the poison? You fire cyanide out from your tiny pink sex toy body? Well, why didn’t you say so earlier? Pull up a chair! Make yourself at home.

 
This is the Shocking Pink Dragon Millipede, only recently found in the Greater Mekong region. It manufactures and fires hydrogen cyanide, which is an extremely poisonous, acidic substance that boils slightly above room temperature and smells of bitter almonds. It’s particularly strange for a creature of its size, because it lives right out in the open – not hiding in shrubs or trees. It just sits out there, garish as hell, daring anything to come near it so it can shoot boiling, poisonous acid at them. You can’t tell me that’s an accident; it knows what it’s doing. That’s like a guy dressing up in drag, heading out to Compton, and then hurling hand grenades at anybody that looks at him sidelong. This thing is not out there defending itself, it’s out there looking for trouble, and may God help your face if you’re what it finds.

Ajolote

 
The Ajolote, also known as the Mole Lizard, is a burrowing lizard that lives mostly in Mexico. It’s disturbing because it only has front legs, which are useful for a tunneling creature, but lacks the back legs which are relatively pointless for something that lives largely underground…and it also resembles something. Something uh, disturbing I guess? Something….look, do I have to spell it out?

 
It’s disturbing because it is a giant crawling penis with tiny clawed hands, okay? That’s why it’s here alongside poison-firing condoms and Cthulu-like monstrosities; because a living severed penis with tiny, near-human arms is so god damn disturbing it would give Freud nightmares, and that guy saw penises everywhere. He was like the penis-seeing version of the kid from the Sixth Sense, and even he would have to admit this thing is pretty fucked up right here.
 

Emerald Cockroach Wasp

The Emerald Cockroach Wasp is mostly native to the Pacific islands and Southeastern Asia, and it’s unique in that it is a brightly colored, solitary wasp with a complex, paralytic venom. It is also unique in that is a master of the undead that utilizes intricate stings, poisons, and amputation to achieve mind control of another species in order to birth its babies within their still-living bodies.

 
When it comes time for the female wasp to lay her eggs, she finds a roach and stings it in a precise spot in the ganglia to reversibly paralyze its front legs, then stings it in a different spot to disable the escape reflex. She then chews off half the roach’s antennae, and uses the stubs to lead the zombified roach around like a dog on a leash until they reach her burrow where she lays her eggs in its stomach, and buries it alive. The lobotomized roach then rests quietly while the baby inside of it hatches, and proceeds to systematically eat the roach’s internal organs in a specific order that keeps it alive until the very end, at which point the new wasp finishes hollowing out the shell and emerges.

Basically, it’s part Ridley Scott’s Alien, part Heinlein’s Puppet Master, and part Dungeons and Dragons’ Necromancer. She surgically alters her prey with poison and forms it into a zombie all to let her babies hollow out its still-living internal organs. Man…just like a woman, am I right, fellas?!

Side Note: If you actually agreed with that statement, then you know horrifying, unearthly women and should phone the authorities immediately.
 

Deep Sea Frilled Shark

 
This creature was, until recently, thought to be extinct. Probably because that’s what the marine biologists really hoped was true when they found the fossils of a 7-foot long half snake, half shark. Upon discovery, I would assume something like that was long since dead too, if only so I could sleep at night without the aid of eight fingers of bourbon and a panic room.

The scientists were wrong though, as they saw when the sharks started occasionally popping up in the nets of deep-sea trawlers. These bizarre creatures were always brought up dead, which is a fortunate fact that could have gone a long way toward proving the existence of a kind and merciful God…except that one was recently filmed alive off the waters of Japan. They supposedly live all around the world, but it was only first encountered in Japanese waters because, as Godzilla taught us, that’s where all good monsters come from.  If you never thought you’d live to see a shark fucking slither at you, you might want to watch this video:

If you did think you’d see this day, then congratulations! You are H.P. Lovecraft, and if you’re reading this blog, then you’ve beaten death! Good for you! For the rest of you, here’s an adorable moonwalking bird, so you can go back to pretending that nature doesn’t actively hate you:

And may God have mercy on your souls.

You can read more from Robert at his own site, I Fight Robots

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