6 Animals Who Live Inside A Horror Movie Every Day

The odious ungulate above hails from the island of Sulawesi, and is arguably the world's most heinous-looking swine. At first glance, you might not notice the off-putting way their corpulent torso is perched on top of those dainty little legs. Mostly because of that face (the one that looks like they just finished devouring an eight-point buck and had trouble swallowing the business end). You'd think the atrociously tuskified mugs on these pork monstrosities would make them great at goring one another (you know, for the right to mate with their equally atrocious ladyhogs.) But it turns out the things are actually loose in their sockets and quite brittle, making the one impressive thing about these animals merely an exercise in pointlessness. The locals pay tribute to these beasts by making "demonic masks" in their honor, none of which do much justice to the overall loathsomeness of the real thing.

wrangel/iStock/Getty Images
For some reason, I just had a strong desire to convert to Judaism.

But more than looks make the babirusa such a suitable candidate for Gestapo / Westboro Baptist reincarnations. What truly makes their life a suitably gruesome punishment for the wicked is the fact that, if not kept in check, those unruly tusks of theirs can sometimes grow upwards and inwards to the point where they pierce right through their own skulls and into their brains.

Via scienceblogs.com

Via scienceblogs.com
The conservationists pretty much gave up at this point.

So to sum things up, we have a hideously grimy organism whose scariest-looking feature doesn't do fuck-all in terms of actual offense or defense, but is somehow just strong enough for it to give itself a DIY lobotomy. Just in case you're looking for a checkmate to one of those intelligent design arguments in the near future.

Rene Drouyer/Hemera/Getty Images
Although you'd be hard-pressed to find a better subject for an anti-sodomy poster campaign.

Well, shit. It turns out fate has decided you'll be spending the next life as a worm. Not even one of the cool ones that terrorize Scotland, but a teeny, bullshit worm that makes its living as a parasite. But at least parasites don't have to work very hard, right? Maybe you could just ride this thing out and wait for the next roll of the astral dice. And try to forget how you'll be spending the interim gorging yourself on gastropod gonads.

The victim in this scenario, the common whelk, is a type of sea snail that lives in a widespread area across the Northern Atlantic. They're fairly innocuous little guys, and generally mind their own business as they slurp hither and thither off the European coasts. They're actually pretty cute, as mollusks go.

Frank Greenaway/Dorling Kindersley/Getty Images
Seen here in happier, dick-having times.

They reportedly thrive in cold temperatures, but probably wouldn't mind a bit of shrinkage here and there just to lower their genitalia profile. And that's because their baby-making parts are under constant threat of annihilation by an insidious type of trematode/flatworm, also known as a fluke. But there are no happy accidents for the snails where this type of fluke is concerned, because it's imperative to these worms' life mission to spend part of their growth cycle decimating snail junk in a purposeful act of aggressive castration.

If you have the stomach for it, the crime scene photos below are worth about 1,000 synonyms for "terrible."

Via scienceblogs.com
The "P" in the top image marks the snail's penis. The "D" in the lower one I think refers to how the snail is praying for death.

If you're thinking that the snails are the ones getting the short end of the stick here (ha!), well, believe it or not, there's an upside to having their manhood gnawed away like a rottweiler with a pizzle stick. Oddly enough, castration winds up giving the snails a longer lifespan, and can sometimes even cause gigantism. Which is probably a pretty cool thing for something as boring as a snail.

No, the indication you're obviously atoning for something you did in a past life is when you come back as the worm. Because after spending some quality time nibbling on snail cock, the next step in the parasitic process is to get eaten by a fish, and then by a bird. Followed by getting pooped back into the sea by said bird, then being ironically gulped down by something called a cockle, which in turn gets eaten by a whelk. And the cycle of penile violence begins anew.

University of Otago
It's not hard to imagine Caligula coming back as the Marquis de Sade's fleshlight, or vice versa.

For humans, incest is the kind of activity that makes characters in Greek tragedies claw their own eyes out, and thankfully isn't very popular, unless you count the times the cable goes out at certain Kentucky trailer parks. Beasts of the wild are bound by no such social stigma, however, and tend to be more open-minded about the old inter-familial rumpty. And while one might expect this sort of behavior from a lowly bug or maybe a godless reptile, mammals do it plenty as well. And the the banded mongoose from Uganda apparently likes it taboo-style more than any other hotblooded varmint around.

JHVEPhoto/iStock/Getty Images
Great. Now I can't listen to Paul Simon anymore without getting creeped out.

So while you'd think returning to the mortal plane as a mongoose might sound pretty awesome, what with all the cobra dueling and Rikki Tikki Tavi street cred, in actuality, it would simply be a fitting punishment for spending the previous lifetime earning the title "motherfucker." Heck, even their scientific name (Mungos mungo) sounds like the plural for some sort of unspeakable sex act. Science doesn't know exactly why the banded mongoose is such a fan of extreme kink, but researchers suspect it has something to do with their "close-knit living arrangements." Which is kind of pathetic in its own right.

BBC
"Well, we always told him he should move out when he turned 18. But that's the age of consent around here too, so things got confusing."

Actually, it's the father/daughter scenarios that were observed with the most frequency by wincing researchers. Not to suggest that these unscrupulous sex weasels wouldn't be up for some mother-on-son action -- it's just that the females tend to die off before they get a chance to defile themselves in full view of every mortified gazelle and hyena on the Savannah. And from there, it's not much of a stretch to assume that they probably have huge, writhing fur-orgies before every nightly Waltons-style family roll call. But before we get all high and mighty about judging banded mon ... geese? ... on their moral repugnance, could it be that all this sordid behavior is merely part of some ingenious survival strategy? I mean, surely there have to be at least a few predators who'd have second thoughts about putting one of these nasty bastards in their mouths.

milanvachal/iStock/Getty Images
One of the only known animals which, when threatened, will instinctively start giving one another an Alabama Hot Pocket.

We don't normally think of squid as being especially badass (aside from the mythological kraken variety), but they can be downright ferocious. Even the smaller ones can be aggressive as hell, and the biggest ones fear little in the ocean apart from one of the more unfortunately-named whales. So maybe spending a life squirting around the inky depths and shanking fools with your parrot beak might actually be sort of cool. That is, until the time rolls around when you feel the urge to do a little procreatin'. Because there are certain species of calamari that are so vicious that even the act of sweet, sweet lovemaking can turn horrifically violent. In fact, at least for some of them, statements like "I'm gonna stab you and fuck the wound" isn't so much a threat as it is a biological imperative.

That wasn't an exaggeration. The reason sex can literally be such a sore subject for a female Dana octopus squid (Taningia danae) is that since she doesn't have much in the way of a vagina, the males are compelled to basically create one themselves. Meaning ... well ... OK, there's really no pleasant way to dance around this, so let's just soak in this unvarnished, clinical description:

The male bioluminescent Dana Octopus Squid uses its beak and sharp claws to pierce holes in its mate before using a penis-like appendage to insert sperm into the cuts.

Via researchgate.net
Yes, those squirmy things on the bottom right are exactly what you think they are. And yes, they're probably a delicacy somewhere.

Taking a more subtle approach, greater hooked squid (Onykia ingens) solve the whole "Where's the hoo-ha?" conundrum by way of specialized sperm which come equipped with a tissue-dissolving enzyme that allows them to burrow into a female's flesh. So yeah, it's pretty much xenomorph jizz. And if you think this is a sad state of affairs for the females, imagine how frustrating it must be for the males when they're forced to resort to these measures while being in possession of one of the world's hugest cocks.

Via Alexander Arkhipkin/Falkland Islands Government Fisheries Department
The long white thing is what you'll probably want to remove before applying the breading.

And that's just a sampling of the copulatory carnage that's par for the course where squidfucking is concerned. Giant squid (Architeuthis) females, in a role-reversal that's straight out of the praying mantis' playbook, "inadvertently" bite large chunks out of of the males during mating. So apparently you can add "accidental cannibalistic orgies" to the list of horrific shit that's already going on down there.

Pierre Denys de Montfort
Maybe all those sea monster legends were merely a plea for the sailors to call Social Services.

The New Zealand batfly is its name, and spending its days "swimming" through bat fur in search of delicious guano and other disgusting rodent-expelled detritus that would make a cockroach retch is its game. But maybe you'd prefer the object of your loathing to return as something a little more slimy? There's always the tiny, useless species of frog which has found that the best place to hide from an unforgiving world is underneath mountainous, steaming piles of elephant dook. We only just discovered the pathetic circumstances of their existence a few years ago, and the fact that elephants are indirectly linked to a shitfrog is probably doing no favors for the brave men and women who are trying to put a stop to the ivory trade.

Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz/University of Tokyo
There are sadly very few princesses who are willing to engage in scat play.

Or perhaps you don't feel that the malicious miscreant of your choice's eternal punishment isn't quite complete unless they're really up in there, pressed in from all sides in unceasing anal torment. Like the leech that specializes in attaching itself exclusively to hippo buttholes. And yes, there is such a thing.

Apparently, hippos are the best source of blood in the area, and their ample starfishes are the only spots soft enough to penetrate. So in order to survive, these leeches must laboriously crawl up the legs of these massive beasts in order to eventually reach the Shangri La of the rectum. Whereupon the remainder of their future is to suck butt until they drop off and die. I'm not sure if human history has produced a being so evil as to deserve returning as one of these creatures, quite frankly, but I guess we'll have to wait and see if Ben Affleck and Nicki Minaj wind up having a child somewhere down the road.

And all they can do is sit back and take it.

OceansIQ
"Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Not your prostate in about five minutes!"

The ass invader in question here is called a pearlfish, which is a rather fancy name for something with such a blatant disregard for polite behavior. Since there aren't many places for these nocturnal fish to hide on the sandy open plains upon which they dwell, they've taken to spending their days crammed up inside the body cavities of slow-moving sea cucumbers -- uninvited and, in case you forgot, via the cucumber's butthole. And at some point, the pearlfish realized that since they were spending so much time in this compromising position, they may as well take further advantage of the situation by treating the cucumbers' reproductive organs like an hors d'oeuvre tray.

Richard Fitzpatrick/BBC World
I'd imagine New York City slumlords are first on the list for this particular scenario.

That would seem to be more than enough humiliation to assure repentance for the misdeeds of a previous life. But just to add insult to anus, the pearlfish take even further liberties while ensconced within the hapless cucumber's colon. Seeing as how it's the safest and coziest spot on the ocean floor, sometimes the pearlfish's girlfriend will drop by and the two of them will get down to the sexin' right up there in the cucumber's business.

Evolution does seem to be taking preventative measures which may assist some species of cucumber in retaining both their genitalia and their dignity. Although it could also be just one more degradation designed merely to add to this already-beleaguered creature's misery. Unless you can find some kind of silver lining in having anal teeth.

NOAA/Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Actually, Jared Fogle might find this feature pretty handy right now over there in federal lockup.

This all being said, having animals as enemies can be very dangerous. See why they're smarter than you think in 16 Animals Doing Things (That Shouldn't Be Possible), and learn how an elephant earned himself the name Osama bin Laden in 5 Terrifying Serial Killers Who Happened to Be Animals.

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