Terrifying new species discovered
Think of the scariest, most horrifying creatures out there, and what do we have? Great whites? Sure. Black widows? Uh-huh. Deathstalker scorpions? Oh, boy. Keep us away from all three.
Though, while humans cower at the frightening animals we know about, what are we to do about those we don't? Indeed, every day scientists are finding new species just as gross, just as venomous and just as dangerous as the ones we already fear. Don't believe us? Here are ten of the most terrifying species discovered just since 2011.
The world met this Indonesian wasp just last month, when the big-jawed insect was unveiled by an entomologist from the University of California. The scientist decided to name it Garuda, after the 'King of Birds,' a powerful mythical warrior from Indonesia, and so it got its fitting nickname: the 'King of Wasps.' Appropriately, the male Garuda wasp's huge, sharp jaws are so big the entomologist admitted, 'I don't know how it can walk.'
This peculiar shark may not be as dangerous as others based on sheer size alone - the above 'Cyclops' shark, which had been rumoured but rarely documented, grows to just 22-inches in length. Still, the 'Cyclops' shark is spooky in the highest regard, having been found and confirmed in Mexico last October. The shark's one-eye fate is actually the result of a congenital condition called cyclopia, which occurs in several animal species and even humans.
Hiding in the tropical forests of southern Indochina was this tiny bat, which was given a notorious nickname after its discovery. Scientists that found the new mammal named it Murina Beelzebub - or 'demon' bat - to reflect, they said, the dark, diabolic colouration of the species, which also boasted a fierce, protective behaviour in the wild.
If we're going to live among venomous snakes, we at least want them big enough to see - which is to say, big enough so we can stay away. Though scientists in China found a tiny surprise last July, when the world was introduced to one of the smallest pit vipers on the planet. At 2.6 feet long, the snake might seem large, but it's the tiniest pit viper known to China, able to coil and hide itself in the country's well-covered forests.
Though this unique frog was first discovered in 2008, it wasn't until a few years later that scientists found something especially different about it. Late in 2010 - the species was announced to the world in Jan. of 2011 - the tadpoles of this flying frog, named so from how it glides from tree to tree in its native Vietnam, were found to have strange curved fangs never spotted before. 'When I first saw them by looking through a microscope, I said, 'Oh my God, wow,' one of the researchers said of the new 'bloodsucking' species.
Not all terrifying new species discoveries are animals, nor are they a danger to you or I. In Brazil, a new form of fungi was found that has the stupefying power to control the minds of ants it infects. Using a unidentified chemical, the fungus infects the ant and is able to control its behaviour, directing it to leave the colony - which ants are wired not to do - and bite down on the underside of a leaf, where it will die (as pictured above). Later, long stalks sprout from the ant's head, which jut out in the hopes of infecting others.
Upon emptying his traps on the waters north of New Zealand, a University of Aberdeen researcher remarked, 'I stopped and thought 'what on earth is that?'' What it was, in fact, was a massive amphipod resembling a monster prawn, though larger and more grotesque than even the inch-long sea creatures. The aptly named 'supergiant' amphipod was more than ten times the normal size of regular monster prawns, akin to 'finding a foot-long cockroach,' the Scottish scientist said.
Some scary animal finds aren't entirely new discoveries, nor are they revelations of species alive today. Still, science can unearth characteristics of terrifying creatures previously thought known to the research world. To wit: last December, researchers found an undocumented trait of the Anomalocaris, one the biggest, scariest predators of the ancient sea world. The three-foot long 'super-predator,' as it's known, lived in shallow oceans more than 500 million years ago, though little was known about the marine animal. Last year, however, researchers found a pair of fossilized eyes that belonged to the beast, suggesting it had excellent vision and would have been one of the sea's most deadly predators in its time.
If you didn't want to run into a hammerhead shark in the wild, now you've got another problem. Researchers unveiled a new look-alike species of hammerhead sharks last month, when they were reported swimming near the coast of southern Brazil. The as-yet unnamed species looks identical to the hammerhead, which can grow to sizes of 20 feet in length and 1,000 pounds in weight.
Before last year, scientists thought the deepest-living animals only existed 30, 40 metres beneath the ground, though a remarkable discovery last June found a new worm squirming about a remarkable 3.6 km below the earth's surface. The nematode, nicknamed the 'devil worm' for how deep it lives, was found among several deep-rock samples of mine water studied in South Africa. It's a tiny critter - only 0.5 mm in length - but, said the discovering scientist, 'That sounds small, but to me it's like finding a whale in Lake Ontario.'
