- [Narrator] We've all been captivated by stories of animals that don't exist, from unicorns and dragons to Bigfoot and the chupacabra. But it's easy to forget
just how unbelievable some of Earth's 8.7 million species are, from rude looking reptiles and
fish with see-through heads to an underwater woodlouse
bigger than newborn babies. Forget about all those
bogus beasts from storybooks and let's embark on a
virtual safari of animals that you won't believe are real. Hooded seals. At first glance, hooded seals
look like any other member of the fin-footed seal family,
but during mating season, the males reveal a mind-blowing secret, or at least nose-blowing. When trying to attract a mate, the male will stomach-churningly inflate the hood of his forehead before pushing a blood
red sack out of his nose. This elasticated membrane inflates when the seal blocks off one nostril and pushes air into the other, appearing bright red thanks to all the blood flowing through it. As the male waves his inflated sack around like an excited kid with a balloon, the display ironically signals just how big and powerful he is. So the bigger the balloon, the better his chances
of impressing a female. Looks like I've been trying
to get girls the wrong way all these years. However, the male can also use it to square off against other enormous seals that can weigh up to 880
pounds during breeding season. When this happens, the male
who displays the biggest bulge wins the female, saving them the energy of a physical confrontation. Although if human males try to
fight over a girl like this, I dread to think what might happen. Rosy maple moth. Believe it or not, there is a creature in the wilds of North America that looks more like a cartoon
than a real life animal. This bright pink and yellow winged thing is called the rosy maple moth. It's a species that belongs
to the great silk moth family, but I'd say it looks more
like a winged version of Dee Dee from "Dexter's Lab ". While it's cartoonish color
patterning doesn't seem like the best choice of camouflage, this moth has a secret
hidden up its furry sleeves. Endemic to northeast America, these pastel colored cuties
like to nest in maple trees, the winged fruits of which have a similar pink and yellow
color scheme to them. So it can perch among the
branches without having to worry about becoming a delicious looking snack for a nearby predator. Although, I do wonder if it tastes as sweet as it looks. Giant isopod. When most of us think of isopods like woodlouse or pill bugs, we imagine tiny insect-like creatures usually no bigger than a half dollar coin. And that's where the
existence of the giant isopod defies all manner of imagination. Living up to 7,000 feet beneath the waves, these underwater isopods
exhibit varying degrees of deep sea gigantism. That means the deeper they live, the bigger they can grow with some specimens measuring up to a staggering 2.5 feet long. The freaky phenomenon has
left scientists scratching their heads for decades. One prominent theory claims
that cooler temperatures, like those of the bottom of the ocean, encourage animals to grow larger
as they radiate less heat. However, another theory argues that large animals have
a lower metabolism, meaning they've evolved to adapt to the lack of food on the ocean floor. Whatever the reason, these overgrown woodlice
scuttle along the ocean floor is still one huge nightmare, but thankfully they only look menacing. That's because giant
isopods are scavengers. Rather than hunting down prey with those creepy-looking claws, these carnivorous
crustaceans wait for food to float down from above in a flurry of so-called marine snow. It's like they're constantly waiting on a deep sea Deliveroo. On the rare occasion
that there's enough food to gorge themselves on, they can eat so much that they inhibit their otherwise graceful
movements (thumping), in the same way I can
inhibit my graceful movements when I eat too much of
my mother's lasagna. Vampire deer. Deer are beautiful, majestic creatures that inspire a sense of
awe in any lucky onlookers, but there's one member of the deer family that's a lot less aw and a
lot more (man screaming). Instead of growing regal-looking antlers, water deer grow huge,
terrifying fangs, instead. Although you might imagine these fanged fiends
leaping around at night trying to nibble on the necks
of unsuspecting victims, the reality is a little more reassuring. Water deer are completely herbivorous and males use these fangs like antlers to compete for mates and territory. And they're vicious appearance
doesn't seem so threatening when you realize that they
only stand about two feet tall. According to Jen Webb, Zoo
Atlanta's carnivore keeper, the ancestor of all deer were small and had both tusks and antlers, but as they evolved the
larger of the species developed larger antlers
and lost their fangs, while smaller deer kept their tiny tusks. Either way, this is going to make for one very freaky "Bambi" prequel. Feather star. There are plenty of weird
and wonderful things swimming around at the ocean, but the feather star looks
like it's been plucked straight from the pages of a children's book. As a member of the crinoid family, which includes sea stars and sea urchins, they begin their lives attached
to the sea floor by a stock. At this stage, they're called sea lilies. But if their stem is broken, they become fluttering feather stars using their fringed appendages to swim freely under the waves, almost like a sentient pom pom. Although not all species
of feather star can swim, scientists believe this
evolutionary response helped them escape from predators, and perhaps more impressively,
they also discovered that feather stars can fully
regenerate any lost limbs. They can grow up to 150
of their feathery arms, which can reach up to a foot long, but should one be severed
it'll slowly grow back at a rate just shy of a millimeter a day. And providing their central disc, called a centradorsal, is intact, there's no limit to how many
times those arms can grow back. So theoretically, these
mesmerizing sea creatures could keep on swimming forever. Although, they must get
tired at some point, right? Aye-aye. Lemurs are famously cute,
cuddly-looking species native to the island of Madagascar, but there's one drastic
exception to the rule. Meet the aye-aye, a primate
that doesn't just look like it evolved in a different way, but on a different planet. It sports rodent-like teeth
that never stopped growing, piercing eyes that see in the dark, and a skeletally thin middle finger that looks like a spider leg. It's also the only primate in the world that relies on echolocation to find food kind of like a dolphin, if a dolphin was small furry
and downright terrifying. Using that long bony finger, the aye-aye taps on branches
before using those massive ears to detect the reverberations
of grub scuttling around the inside. If it hears one, it'll rip open the branch
with a powerful bite, which is so strong that it
can chew through concrete. Then it uses that hideously
dexterous middle finger, which has its own ball and socket joint, like a freakishly tiny
shoulder, to fish out the grubs. While this spine-tingling display
makes many people shudder, The aye-aye clearly doesn't care. In fact, it's giving the
world the middle finger and speaking of freakish fingers, why don't you use yours to move that mouse over those like and subscribe buttons. With just two clicks,
you'll be the first to know when I release new videos covering even more mind blowing facts
or sensational stories. All done? Great! Now let's take a look at even more animals that you won't believe exist. Maned Wolf. From the shoulders up, the maned wolf, that prowls the South American savannas, looks like any other crafty canine, but once it steps out of the tall grass, it looks like someone just
glued a fox onto some stilts. Standing around three
feet at the shoulder, about hip height on most people, the unbelievably long
legs of this weird wolf raise up the main bulk of its body. While it looks like an evolutionary joke, scientists theorize that
their height makes prey easier to see and catch
in the tall grasses of the South American savannas. Even so, it doesn't really
look like any kind of wolf you've ever seen before, because despite it's name,
it's not a wolf at all. The puzzling mixture of
its anatomical oddities, like long legs, bright
red fur, and wolfish body, make it a unique and distinct
species called Chrysocyon. So while it's still a
member of the canid family, it looks more like someone
mashed a fox and a wolf together and gave it a few rounds
through a taffy puller. Worm lizards. Look down on the ground,
it's a worm, it's a lizard! No, it's a worm lizard? Seems like Mother Nature couldn't decide if this Pepto-Bismol-colored creature was going to be a lizard or an earthworm, so settled for something in between. Known as the bipes, from
the amphibaenid family, this goofy-looking
reptile's long buddy has the light pink ribbing of a worm combined with the beady little
eyes and jaws of a lizard, but its strangest feature, by far, are the two funny-looking
front limbs attached to its 10-inch long body. Found across the Mexican Baja Desert, it's also earned itself
the hilarious title of the Mexican Mole Lizard because of how it uses
those stumpy little legs. Just like a mole, it shovels
sand and soil out of its way and buries itself underground in a kind of subterranean bunker. There, it stays to escape
the heat of the desert sun, only emerging on the surface
when it's much cooler, although the verdict is still out on whether it technically
slithers or crawls its way around. What do you think? Long-beaked echidna. With spines like a
hedgehog, a fleshy beak, and the ability to lay
eggs like a reptile, this wacky mammals sounds like
it's been made up by a child, but far from being a Crayola
drawing stuck on a fridge, the long-beaked echidna is weirdly real. That long, fleshy beak
it gets its name from is comprised of a single bony tube. It feeds by sucking hard at the ground and slurping up soft
invertebrates like earthworms, a bit like a kid messily
slurping up spaghetti, except unlike a child, it has
electroreceptors in its beak that can detect the faintest
electrical fields produced by its underground prey. Think that sounds weird? Well, that's just the start. As I already mentioned, despite
technically being a mammal, this spiny sucker actually lays eggs. When those eggs hatch, the
echidna will incubate them in a pouch, just like a kangaroo, but unlike a kangaroo,
it'll feed those babies, adorably known as puggles,
through a series of milk patches, not teats, patches. Through special glands in their pouches, milk oozes out of its skin
for the baby to suck up through its own bizarre little beak. Man, if a kid did dream this thing up with a pack of crayons, I'd have some serious
questions about their sanity. Bryozoans. In rivers and lakes around the world, These mysterious brain-like blobs can be found living in murky waters. Although they look like
mounds of moldy jello, they're more alive than you might think. You see these lifeless
gelatinous lumps are actually living colonies
called magnificent bryozoans. While the individual
animals they're made up of, called zooids, only grow to
about 1/25 of an inch in length, they cluster together to form colonies as large as four feet in diameter. Banding together like this
means they can find food more easily in the water, usually in the form of algae
or other organic material. But the way they eat
might turn your stomach because they each only have one opening that serves as both their mouth
and they're, uh, poop shoot. Using tiny hair-like
tentacles around the opening, they gently push food down their gut. To excrete, it's the same, but in reverse. So if you ever spot one
of these in the water, you might want to think
twice about picking it up. That water is brown for a reason. Salps. Although these mysterious
balls of goo look like they've been forced
into a fish-shaped mold, you might be surprised to learn that they're taxonomically
closer to humans than jellyfish. That's because these
semi-transparent sea creatures, called salps, are members
of an animal group known as sea squirts or tunicata. They all have a supporting
notochord, bit like a backbone, running through them to protect
their central nerve cord. Despite their floppy
jelly-like appearance, this crucial attribute makes them some of the closest living
relatives to vertebrates. However, if you catch a
glimpse of them under water, you might just realize how
different they really are. As you can see, salps form these unbelievable underwater chain colonies as part of their reproductive cycle. They're created when a single
solitary salp asexually buds off clones of itself. With each one growing so fast, they increase in length by 10% every hour. Different variants can range in size from a few millimeters
to almost four inches, meaning the chains they form
can measure up to 15 feet. These bizarre living jelly
ropes can twist and spiral in the water, which is
a pretty amazing feat for an animal with no bones. Pyrosomes. Salps aren't the only
boneless animal that look impossibly impressive underwater. If you want proof, just take a look at the alienesque form of
this enormous pyrosome. Pyrosomes are free floating
colonies of zooids, kind of like the bryozoans. They're all connected by shared tissue, like some sort of gelatinous tunic, which they use to communicate and coordinate their movements. As each individual zooid filters
the ocean water for food, they expel the filtered water into the colonial cylindrical body. With enough water being pushed out, like using thousands of
tiny motors all at once, the colony propels forward. These colonies can range in size from just a few
centimeters to 60 feet long with openings wide enough
for a human to swim through and have bodies big enough to ride. They increase in size
through asexual reproduction, meaning they create identical
clones of themselves to expand their gigantic
worm-like structure, and like that wasn't weird
enough, they also glow. The name pyrosome literally
means fire body in Greek because they emit a bizarre
bioluminescent light that can be seen more than 100 feet away. Scientists think it may
be to ward off predators or communicate with other colonies, although it remains
something of a mystery. Do you guys have any ideas? Let me know. Atretochoana eiselti. Before you ask, no, scientists didn't discover
this animal on Tinder. This, uh, unfortunate
looking creature is called the Atretochoana eiselti, although it's (clears
throat) suggestive appearance has earned it the hysterical
nickname of the man-aconda. This phallic fiend is
actually a type of caecilian, which are a group of blind,
snake-like amphibians that look more like worms than reptiles. However, the man-aconda
has a few unique traits. For a start, it's the only
lung-less species of Sicilian known to man, meaning it breathes via a
gas exchange in its skin. And secondly, it's flat
skull and enlarged mouth look like they were plucked straight out of my worst nightmares. But what it lacks in beauty,
it makes up for in length, as some variants have been found to measure up to 31.7 inches. Now, I know size isn't everything, but I can't help but
feel a little jealous. Mary river turtle. Back in 2018, this unbelievable image of a tiny turtle sporting
one hell of a Mohawk took the internet by storm, but it turns out the
vivid green hair isn't the strangest thing about this
rebellious-looking reptile. It's called the Mary river turtle, an endangered species native to Australia that has the unique ability to breathe through its, uh, genitalia. Using specialized glands near its cloaca, an organ used for both
excretion and mating, it can stay submerged in water
for anywhere up to 72 hours. Because they spend so
much time under the water, algae can start to grow on their shell, head,
and other body parts, which is where that hilarious
green hairdo comes from. Okay, so the hair may be fake, but is there anything more punk than breathing through your own butt? The Yeti crab. At first glance, you might
think this crab pinched some poor raver's shaggy legwarmers, but this is, in fact, the Yeti crab, a name that comes from its
white hairy appearance, which resembles the
legendary Yeti snow monster. But there's nothing
monstrous about this crab, considering it reaches
around six inches in size. It lives in almost freezing ocean depths around 7,800 feet below the waves, but it's fantastic white fur
isn't designed to keep it warm. Scientists speculate that
these little crabs use the hairy bristles on their
arms to harvest bacteria. By clambering over hydrothermal
vents in the ocean floor, they use the warm, rising waters to cultivate nutritious microbes. This means they'll have
a constant food supply within arm's reach, a little
bit like me during lockdown. Finally, I have found my spirit animal. The great potoo. With its freakishly gigantic
eyes and creepily open smile, it's hard to tell if this is
a bird or a demonic Muppet. It may look like a shelled design for an R-rated Jim Henson creation, but this feathery fiend is, in fact, tropical America's great potoo bird. At just 23 inches tall, this nocturnal creature has
developed huge bulging eyes to spot flying insects in the dark, along with a massive
mouth to help catch them. However, when exposed to light, their irises shrink dramatically, making them look either incredibly
cute or utterly deranged. They're ominous orbs
also have a narrow slit along the bottom of their eyelids, allowing them to sense movement even when their eyes are closed. This means when they sleep during the day. while expertly camouflaging
themselves as tree stumps, they can detect any approaching predators. I guess there really is
no rest for the wicked or the wicked-looking, at least. Fire snail. If regular snails celebrated Halloween, they'd probably go trick or
treating looking like this, except that's no costume, because these are the true-to-life
colors of the fire snail. With its huge black shell growing up to 2.7 inches in diameter and bright red foot
measuring up to 11.8 inches, they're big enough to
make a grown man scream. With their vampiric color scheme, they look like they'd
leave a trail of blood rather than slime, but in reality, these crazy colored
mollusks are no different to your garden variety snail. Well, almost no different. It's a species native to the cloud forest of the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia, which has a very cool
and humid temperature that allows this melanoid
mollusk to thrive. Because these specific conditions are almost impossible to emulate, the snails are notoriously
hard to keep alive outside of their natural habitat. So, sorry, to all of the goths out there who were hoping to get one as a pet. Go write some sad poetry
about it or something. Blue dragon. Dragons are mythical
beings that only exist in children's stories and nerdy
role-playing games, right? Wrong, these extraordinarily
embellished predators are known as blue dragons,
although they're scientific and much less cool name
is Glaucus atlanticus. And despite its majestic appearance, this brilliantly colored creature is actually a species of
small pelagic sea slug. Growing to a maximum of just
of 1.2 inches in length, these tiny slugs float
along ocean currents by swallowing air and holding it in a specialized gas
sack in their stomachs. But as pretty as they look, you don't want to go scooping
these out of the water. You see, blue dragons are the predators of other pelagic creatures, including the deadly Portuguese man o' war and other venomous siphonophores. Once they've chowed down
on their poisonous prey, they recycle their nematocysts that give the siphonophores
they're dangerous stings and store them in their
finger-like serrata, so if you pick one up, you
might receive a deadly sting. While it's not exactly breathing fire, I guess they do have a little bit of dragon in them after all. Creatonotos moth. Ever wondered what would happen
if Satan had been allowed to create an animal? Well, the answer would
probably look something like the creatonotos moth. Those terrifying tentacles protruding from its abdomen may look like something out of a bad dream, though
I'm sorry to tell you that this thing is completely real, but it's not as bad as it looks. For start, the moth only has a
wingspan of about 1.5 inches, which is about half
the size of your thumb. Despite its
less-than-appealing appearance, those menacing tentacles aren't
used to feed on your soul. They're known as coremata which are scent organs
that the moth inflates to produce pheromones when
trying to attract a mate. Well, it doesn't seem so scary now, although I still vote that
we send it back to hell where it clearly belongs. Macropinna microstoma. A fish with a transparent
head may sound like something straight out of science fiction, but in the deep, dark
waters of the Pacific Ocean, it's very much alive and swimming. The Macropinna microstoma, more commonly known as the barreleye fish, gets its nickname from
the tubular set of eyes embedded within its transparent head. That's right its eyes aren't the dark capsules you see at the front, but the large green orbs glinting inside that fluid-filled shield. As unusual as this physical trait seems, it's actually a clever hunting tool. You see the barreleye lives around 2,000 to 2,600
feet below the waves, so it's constantly swimming
through pitch black waters. To catch a decent meal in
these abyssal conditions, its sensitive tubular eyes are angled upwards through its head. This means it can spot
the faintest silhouette of prey floating above
and ambush it from below. While this makes it sound like a terrifying deep sea predator, the barreleye is only
about six inches long, so the only thing you'd
risk losing to this fish is a staring contest. Which of these unbelievable animals do you think looks the most made up and have you been lucky enough
to see any of them up close? Let me know down in the comments below and thanks for watching.
