13 Real Animals Lifted Directly Out of Your Nightmares

#6.
The Mata Mata Mutant Turtle

Holy shit, whose idea was this? What you'd suspect was a regular turtle after a series of grotesque radiation experiments is actually mata mata, a South American turtle that looks like a cross between Bowser and Ian McShane.

Supposedly its hideous exterior camouflages it from its prey, but really the thing is just so fucking ugly that fish would rather get eaten than have to look at it. Fortunately, people aren't on the menu, but with a shell that measures 18-inches long and a body that weighs 33-pounds, we wouldn't tease them with our fingers.

All right, we need to get something cute and furry on this list, ASAP.

#5.
Aye Aye Lemur A.K.A. the Rat that Ate All the Crystal Meth

Fuck! That's actually worse! This strung-out looking thing is the aye aye lemur, which appears to have crawled its way out of the rancid vagina of a Victorian prostitute and went straight to work hiding in children's bedrooms to steal their dreams.

Actually, it lives in trees in Madagascar and uses its freakishly over-sized fingers to find grubs (the exact purpose of its goblin hair has yet to be determined). It's basically the terrifying version of a woodpecker. Unsurprisingly, Madagascan natives regard the aye aye as an unholy terror. Consequently, the damn thing is endangered and we're legally required to give a shit about it. But fuck it, the Rancor was probably endangered too.

Let's get us another furry creature, it's still better than going back to the shit with tentacles.

#4.
Star Nosed Mole A.K.A. the Furry Creature with Tentacles

Ah! Where's its face?! Is that its face?

The star nosed mole a.k.a. "the creature with another bullshit name because it should be called 'the tentacle faced digbeast'" looks like it should come bursting out of the boiler room of an old church to kill every orphan in the city, only to eventually be cast back into Hell by a retired priest struggling with his own faith played by Lance Henriksen.

In reality they're only about eight-inches long and are mostly blind (its titular star nose is a sensory organ) which we argue takes nothing away from its orphan-eating potential.

#3.
The Big Red Jellyfish

The granrojo jellyfish ("big red" in English) is 10-feet across, lives in the deep sea and looks like an escaped uterus hell-bent on revenge. They've only been seen two dozen times, so very little is known about them, aside from their being huge, red versions of what your boner sees when it has a nightmare. Scientists aren't even sure what or how they eat, presumably because the guy who took this series of photographs was never heard from again.

#2.
The Fish with the Transparent Head (A.K.A. Barreleye)

At this point we have decided that anything that comes from the deep sea is pure evil. This one appears to have been dreamed up as a children's learning tool by Satan's kindergarten teacher.

It's a barreleye fish and you can see through its head. The weird green balls inside are its eyes, and they are frozen staring upwards to find fish.

That's right. Rather than giving it a great sense of smell or touch or superior electromagnetic senses to help it hunt in the darkness of the deep sea, nature saw fit to glue eyes on the top of its brain and give it an invisible skull. Why not?

#1.
Wolf Trap

If you think that picture makes it hard to figure out what's going on with this creature, you're right. You'll find that all photos of it have the same problem.

Sharing its name with an anti-terrorist unit led by Louis Gossett, Jr., the wolf-trap anglerfish is also known as a wonderfish, which sounds more like a Saturday morning cartoon show.

They are distinctive because, for one, they have a fucking fishing pole glued to their head. To catch fish, not wolves as their name would imply (if such a fish existed, you'd have fucking heard about it by now). They're called a "wolf-trap" because their massive upper jaws (which are up to three times the size of the lower jaw) have "movable premaxilaries," which means it opens and closes sideways like... well, like a wolf trap.

We are amazed that the direct to DVD market has not yet been terrorized by its giant prehistoric ancestor.


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