Skip to main content

Animals 16-20 in our '50 incredible animals series'

Hello and welcome to another 50 incredible animals post where we are sharing 5 more animals that you (hopefully) haven't heard of or know much about! Enjoy!

16. Mantis shrimp

Mantis shrimp are colourful but deadly sea-dwelling creatures that live in tropical and sub-tropical seas in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

They may look pretty however, they have a surprisingly strong punch. They can punch up 50 miles per hour with a force of over 1 500 newtons. That's enough to go destroy crab shells and punch their way straight through the glass of an aquarium. The punch is as fast as a bullet and is 2 500 times the force of the animal's on weight. If humans could do that, we would be able to punch through steel! Also mantis shrimp are thought to have the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom!

All in all, mantis shrimp are pretty incredible animals!

17. Clownfish

Clownfish are one example for the amazing corporations in the natural world. They live in a close relationship with anemones. The anemone protects them against predators and gives them a place to live. In return, the clownfish bring food and remove parasites from the anemone. This is called a symbiotic relationship.
Anemones are actually poisonous, but these fish have developed ways to stop the anemones from stinging them. This makes anemones the perfect place to hide from predators.

18. Axolotl

What axolotls are best known for, is the fact that they never turn into adults. This is kind of true. Axolotls certainly never undergo metamorphose and therefore look like children for their whole lives. Also, when amphibians turn into adults, they normally leave the water and live on land. Axolotls live in water for their whole lives. So in some sense, they don't turn into adults. However, at some point they mate and lay eggs. It really depends on how you define adulthood.
To make these animals sound even more weird, they can regenerate limbs and organs! Axolotls are territorial and often bite limbs off trespassers. If the trespasser happens to be another axolotl, the limb will grow back later. However these animals are not immortal and they will die of old age when their time comes.

19. Electric eel

These truly are incredible animals as they can grow up to 2.5 meters in length, and sorry to disappoint but they aren't actually eels at all, they are just similar in shape! The shock of these remarkable animals has been known to knock a horse off its feet, which is just amazing! They live in South America, populating the murky pools and basins of the area. A website called aqua states that 'Juveniles feed on invertebrates, such as crabs and freshwater shrimp. As adults, they eat amphibians, fishes and crustaceans.' which sums up their diet. They are able to leap out the water and get most of their oxygen by breathing through their mouth at the surface of the water, which is something they've developed as a result of the muddy, poorly oxygenated waters where they live. To me, these are extremely interesting animals!

20. Desert locusts

These creatures live (surprise surprise) in the desert, mainly in Africa and stretching across to India too. They eat plant material which means that they strip an area of crops when they strike, for they are in fact a real threat to us. Worldbank puts it very nicely saying that 'The growing swarms spread to new areas, disrupting the food supply, upending livelihoods and requiring substantial resources to address. Decimated crops and pasture mean that food security and livelihoods for millions of people—especially in countries marked by fragility, conflict and violence—are at stake.'. They can travel at 21mph and a large swarm can contain about 80 million members! This is another very interesting fact: they change color as they gather in numbers. Neutral-coloured locusts are solitary, but bright yellow locusts are ready to swarm! I think it's incredible how they change colour!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this post with another 5 animals and we'll be back soon!



Sources:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/facts/mantis-shrimp
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/facts/clownfish
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/facts/axolotl
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/facts/electric-eel
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/desert-locust
https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/the-world-bank-group-and-the-desert-locust-outbreak


Images:
Mantis shrimp: This image, owned by prilfish (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Clownfish: This image, owned by Teddy Hartanto (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Axolotl: This image, owned by john (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Electric eel: Elizabeth (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Animals 46-50 in our '50 incredible animals' series

Hi everyone! Welcome to the final part in our '50 Incredible Animal series' where you can find out about animals 46-50. We started this series almost a year ago to celebrate our 50th post and it feels crazy to think that we are now nearing our 100th. To read all of the previous posts from this series, click here . Hope you enjoy it! 46. Spiny bush viper Spiny bush vipers, Atheris hispida, are a species of venomous snake native to Central and East Africa in tropical forests and shrubland. They are mostly solitary creatures but can climb trees, which is where they find the majority of their prey. Spiny bush vipers are carnivorous and feed on mammals, frogs and lizards, as well as birds. Independent from birth, Spiny bush vipers can have up to 12 'snakelets' at a time and are 15cm in length. Currently, there are no known threats to Spiny bush vipers, and they are categorized as Not Evaluated on the IUCN Red List. 47. Leafy sea dragon ...

Climate change: what is it and what's the problem

Hello, I've noticed that we are always mentioning climate change. Not only us blog editors but also politicians, activists and so on. The words climate change are bounced around in the media and probably in your households, but do you actually know what it is or how it works? I know that for a long time, I didn't know what it really meant. I hope that this post changes that. What is climate change and how does it work? The words climate change describe a slow shift in the earth's temperature and changes in the weather patterns. Having a single warm winter does not instantly mean climate change. Climate change happens over a long period of time. If you look at a temperature graph over the years, it doesn't go up in one day and then stay the same for another hundred years. It curves up slowly but steadily. This is a average temperature graph from 1880 to just after 2000. You can see how the temperature gradually gets warmer....

Heatwaves - what's so bad about them?

Hi everyone, Today we’re talking about heatwaves and what effects they have on us and the environment. Heatwaves are becoming ever more common, with 2023 breaking multiple world records. In China, 52.2°C were recorded at one point and the coastal waters near Florida, USA, were as warm as a hot tub. This is because of the combination of climate change and El Niño , both of which make the effects of the other worse. But we can’t push the blame onto El Niño. When analysed it became clear that without human made climate change the USA heat records would have been almost impossible. So what exactly are the effects of such high temperatures. A study in Europe found that the 2022 heatwave possibly caused over 70 000 heat related deaths. Although it is sometimes hard to tell whether or not someone died from the heat or from something else, after analysing the data the team found that their original estimate of 62 000 people (which is still a lot) was probably ...

Announcement: Factfile

This image is owned by a blog editor.

16.08.2020 Animal of the week: Elephant

Hello. On the 12th of August it was International Elephant Day, so we decided that this week's post should be about elephants. Elephants are the largest living land mammals. There are three types of elephant; the African bush elephant; the African forest elephant and the Asian elephant. African elephants have larger ears, whereas Asian elephants have smaller ears. Elephants use their trunks to breath, bring food and drink to their mouths and to grasp objects. Elephants' legs are like pillars. They carry the Elephant's massive weight. African bush elephants weigh 6000kg, Asian elephants weigh 4000kg and African forest elephants weigh 2700kg. Basically, they are very heavy.Elephants eat grasses, small plants, bushes, fruit, twigs, tree bark, and roots. Elephants can live up to 70 years old in the wild. They communicate by sight, touch and smell. Sadly, these wonderful mammals are in danger. African elephants are listed as vulne...

Linking climate change and inequality - 'The Great Carbon Divide'

Hey everyone, Have you heard of 'The great carbon divide‘? It is often referred to as the 'carbon footprint gap' or the 'emissions imbalance‘, and produces frightening numbers. The great carbon divide describes the huge gap between the amount of carbon dioxide the rich versus the poor emit, and these numbers shocked even us.  What does this mean?  There have been many different studies, and all of them show terrifying results. One study from the Guardian and Oxfam, reports that the richest 1% of the world's population emit more carbon than the poorest 66%. The richest 1% consist of 77 million people, which may seem like a lot at first, but the poorest 66% refers to over 5 billion people! Africa, which is home to 17% of the world's population, only causes 4% of the world's emissions. This top 1% emitted 16% of global CO2 emissions in 2019, that's 5.9 billion tonnes of CO2. Modelling suggests that it would take someone who isn't in the top 1% about 150...

An exciting initiative from Co-op and Sainsbury's...

Hi Everyone! Today I want to tell you about something I think is very exciting. If you want to recycle more plastic then this could be your chance! Co-op and Sainsbury's have both launched a new soft plastics recycling scheme where you bring your 'soft plastics' (things like crisp packets, chocolate wrappers and fruit and veg bags) into a designated area. For 'hard plastics' such as yoghurt pots, juice cartons and fruit and veg punnets, you can use either your local kerbside collection but not every area collects plastics in this way, including mine so we collect ours and bring it to the tip ourselves. To check if it's a soft plastic you can use the scrunch test- scrunch up the object and if it pings back then it is probably plastic. Then you need to clean it and bring it into one of the stores. Co-op even accepts plastics from other retailers! Co-op uses the plastic to make bin bags for use in the store which I think is a g...

Announcement: Animal of the week

How well do you know the Arctic and the Antarctic? - Quiz

Welcome back to Green World, As announced last week, we're starting our new monthly series: quizzes! This post contains the questions, you have to write down the answers and compare them with the solutions right at the bottom of this post.  Questions: True or False? The Arctic is not actually a land mass, it's a frozen ocean. How many people live in the Arctic circle? a) 500 000 b) 4 million c) 10 million True or False? Narwals don't actually have unicorn-like horns. That's just a legend. What percentage of the world's freshwater is frozen within the Arctic's ice? a) 10% b) 15% c) 20% True or False? The Arctic covers parts of 15 different countries. Scientists exploring Antarctica have measured winds of up to... a) 100 km/h b) 150km/h c) 200km/h True or False? The driest (natural) place on Earth is in Antarctica...

06.09.2020 Animal Of the Week: Seven-spotted Ladybird

Hello Everyone, Welcome to this week's animal of the week post. This time about the ladybird, and personally I can't wait to find out more about these creatures. Enjoy! Which ladybird we are investigating today? Today, I am telling you about the seven-spotted ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata), which is the most common ladybird in Europe. Other species include the Two Spot Ladybird and other uncommon ladybirds such as the 16 Spot and other peculiar types. Habitat The seven-spotted ladybird lives in a variety of habitats such as meadows, gardens and hedgerows. They can also be found on farmland, especially with crops such as alfalfa, clover and wheat and corn before it grows too tall. Diet The seven-spotted ladybird feeds on a range of aphid species. This is why they are often referred to as a gardener's best friend as they eat these creatures who can damage plants. They can also eat white flies and anything else that is soft-bo...