I believe that the water bear is the strangest animal on the planet and the most extraordinary.
Water Bears are members of a largely unknown phylum of invertebrate animals, the Tardigrada. The largest tardigrades grow to a size of just over 1 mm, but they can easily be seen with microscopes.Tardigrade bodies are divided into segments, roughly cylindrical and posses four pairs of lobopodial limbs (poorly articulated limbs without joints, which are found in soft bodied animals.
they are strange because:
The way that tardigrades have adapted to environmental stress is to reversibly suspend their metabolism and to effectively isolate themselves from the changes. This state is known as cryptobiosis and is a truly death-like state. Cessation of metabolism in other organisms is called death. Metabolism in tardigrades can lower to less than 0.01% of normal, or be entirely undetectable and the water content of the body may decrease to less than 1%. Tardigrades have been revived from this state after more than 100 years and shown signs of life!
also see:
http://www.museums.org.za/bio/tardigrades/
2006-10-20 16:50:02
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answer #1
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answered by t 2
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I am going to be mundane here... and point out the life cycle of a common Monarch butterfly. Here is a 10-legged creature that hatches from an egg the size of a pinhead, and within 2 weeks or so eats something like 40,000 X its weight in poisonous plant matter. It then encases itslef in a hard shelled coccoon, with spots on it that look like 14 karat gold. While in the coccoon , it liquefies its entire body, and somehow that liquid mass knows to reform itself into a winged creature with 6 legs. It emerges from the coccoon, and spends hours completely vulnerable while its wings dry. If it is lucky, a predator that ate one of its kin, and got sick from that experience, will leave it alone. This creature weighs less than an ounce, and gets blown about in wind, yet migrates thousands of miles across borders to overwinter in clusters on trees. It flies back the following year, mates, lays eggs on a poisonous plant that is becoming endangered, and then dies. Along the way it is susceptible to pollution, wind, rain, predators, cold, and plain getting lost.
almost everything is truly and completely amazing when you learn enough about it.. And, yes, downright strange!
2006-10-20 14:07:05
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answer #2
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answered by Hauntedfox 5
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Great answers so far, I was thinking man is the strangest in its behaviour. However, for physical looks, I might mention the Okapi. It is related to the Giraffe, but if you ignore the 18" tongue and the large Giraffe ears, then you might think it related to a donkey or horse or zebra.
I love these cute, secretive beauties.
2006-10-20 04:25:26
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answer #3
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answered by Brian H 4
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Human beings are the strangest animals on earth, because they do most unnatural things on earth and they think that earth has been made for them only.
2006-10-20 04:51:09
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answer #4
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answered by Anonymous
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In response to what haggisba said about komodo dragons, they arent actually poisonous, as they have no chemical compound which they store/secrete to kill you. However their saliva contains anti-coagulants which prevent your blood from clotting, along with almost 40 different bacteria which cause infection to set in quickly. I hardly consider this poisonous, but they are amazing animals either way.
2006-10-20 13:03:27
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answer #5
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answered by lucky_sweet_cute 2
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Platypus. They look strange because their body looks like a mammal, but they have eggs. They have a beak, but they nurse their young and have fur.
Marsupials-kangaroo, Tasmanian devil- they give birth early and the baby somehow ends up in their natural pocket with mammary glands in it...weird...If I had a tiny thing crawling on me to my belly(if I had a pouch pocket) it seems like I would instinctively scratch it off....maybe that is why humans don't have pouches.
2006-10-20 04:07:23
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answer #6
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answered by missy 4
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Man... Extreme unpredictable behaviour. Can love and hate with the same intensity toward the same person. All are different with little consistency.
2006-10-20 04:07:23
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answer #7
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answered by Letsee 4
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the sea cucumber -- it pretty much ejects it's internal digestive track out into the open to eat and gather food. In other words, it turns it self inside out to eat. That's pretty strange!
2006-10-20 16:56:48
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answer #8
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answered by MrZ 6
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I agree with first answer, it is the worlds only poisonous mammel. The sloth is also quite strange and the commodo dragon, it's bite is also very poisonous.
2006-10-20 04:07:06
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answer #9
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answered by Anonymous
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if you think of it humans can be really strange. and some act like animals : P
2006-10-20 04:05:30
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answer #10
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answered by jenzen25 4
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