Some Superb Animal Species

Turns out the world isn't all about Lions, Giraffes, Dogs, Cows, and Cats. Mother Earth has many organisms that are just now being discovered by scientists. Not only at the bottom of the ocean, either. A 6-foot long tree lizard and new African antelope were discovered this year. Chances are you aren't a scientist, so you've got some ground to make up before you are accused of not getting out much.

Angora Rabbit

• The Angora Rabbit is the product of hundreds of years of domestic breading for its wool. 
• It looks similar to a cat that has been on a power line, a cotton ball with a face, or a sheep with a straightener. 
• There are actually multiple breeds of this rabbit, and they were very popular among French royalty.
•  I'm curious if Elmer Fudd would hunt one of these guys. Check out this site that takes them very very seriously.

Dumbo Octopus

• This little guy can be found at really, really deep places in the ocean.
•  By deep I mean 7000 meters deep. 
• It's not called the Dumbo Octopus because of its intelligence, either.
•  It uses its ears to swim. Why does this guy make the list? Because he's kind of cute despite being one of the only species of Octopus that swallow its victims whole. 
• No need to worry, he's only about 20 cm in length full grown. 
• Scientists don't know all that much else.

The Blobfish

• Golly-gee that's one ugly creature. What was evolution thinking? Anyway, you might guess that this one isn't a fast swimmer. 
• In fact, it just kind of hangs around the bottom of the ocean where all the other fish are at. 
• Not having to move, it waits till it's micro-organism dinner floats by it. It doesn't even have to swim most of the time, as its body's tissue is slightly less dense than water, allowing it to float at the bottom of the ocean.
• It's still endangered though--overfishing leads to these guys being hauled out of the ocean at a fast rate.

The Kakapo

• This is a parrot. We know this because it likes to hang on shoulders and eats crackers.
•  It is a New Zealand bird, primarily alive because of the lack of native mammal predators on the island of New Zealand. 
• Among its qualities: Smells weird, barks like a dog, and is portly and nocturnal.
• It is critically endangered because Europeans brought dogs and cats over to New Zealand, and once they learned the Kakapo's smell, were able to find them with ease.
• Once again an example of humans messing with nature. Poor Kakapos. At least it is fun to say their name.

The Olm

• Q: What has 3 toes on its front limbs, 2 toes on its back limbs, human-like skin, is blind, lives to 100 (some say only 60), lives in caves and oceans, and can go ten years without food?
• A: You should have guessed from all those hints (and the subtitle)... the Olm.
• This creature is unlike any other. It has great hearing and olfactory systems. Its olfactory system is so well made that it can sense quantity of small organic organisms around it.

The Matamata Turtle

• This guy makes the list because he looks like a tank. From appearances, I think his shell/head could be bulletproof, fireproof, radiation proof, and toughest of all, child proof. 
• I'm not sure about any of those though, as I didn't run into any in my research. 
• The shell and head may look extremely tough, and probably are, but they are meant for camouflage. 
• Just imagine if you were looking at this guy from above as he was still on the bottom of a creek. 

The Barreleye

• The Barreleye to the right is one of the only ones ever seen alive. 
• They have been documented since 1939, however most of the time nets or lines pierced the fluid bubble that makes this fish so unique.
• So why does this fish have a transparent head? Well, it works like a cockpit. 
• Its advanced eyesight is advanced even when pointing forward. However, it can rotate its eyes backwards and upwards to see prey and predators. 

Tarsiers

• Tarsiers are interesting creatures.These little guys grow to be a whopping 5 inches. 
• They eat insects and have been known to jump from tree to tree and eat birds.
• That's right. They're nocturnal and move very, very fast using their extremely bony looking fingers (and long tail). 
• Females usually have about one little baby tarsier per year. 
• What else is unnatural about these creatures? They can twist their heads 180 degrees like an owl. 
• If they were any bigger then I'd be scared of them.

Flying...Squid?

• The reason that I couldn't find much information on the flying squid is because many people mistake it for flying fish. 
• It was only within the last 20 years when the flying squid was actually seriously talked about in academic circles. 
• If any of you readers are on the water very much you might know that flying fish zoom by and it is hard to distinguish their finer features from a boat. 
• Flying squid are more rare and zoom by just as fast, and so we don't know much about them.
• It has been recently confirmed by scientists that there is a flying squid known as the red or neon flying squid (its blue).
• We don't know how they jump out of the water or why. More research needs to be done on these things because its apparent that they don't even know what color they are.

Darwin Bark Spider

• Darwin Bark Spiders were a recent discovery (2009) and also mystify me the most. A couple of facts: Their silk is much stronger than other spiders' silk that have been studied. 
• In turn, it is 10 times stronger than Kevlar (that stuff used to make bulletproof vests). 
• Somehow they string their webs across rivers...don't you have to have two people to string something across the river? Maybe they swim across, who knows.
• The best way to study them is by boat because that's the only way scientists can analyze their behaivors from a close distance. 
• There is still a lot about them unknown because only local Madagascar tour guides knew about them for a very long time.
• They eat bees, dragonflies, and mayflies (up to 32 mayflies have been in one web at a time). Soooooo, since we don't know that much about them, I'm going to make a hypothesis that their webs can catch birds, too.