25 Animals You Haven t Heard Of Maybe Part Four

With millions of described species on earth, and likely millions more yet to be described, it's impossible to know them all. Yet still, for those of us who love nature, finding species that truly surprise us can feel rare. In this video, I'm sharing 25 animals that I think very few people will know about, and I hope that at least some of them will surprise you. I've divided them into five categories. Insects and arachnids, amphibians and reptiles, fish, birds, and mammals, with five picks for each. This is part four in my series of animals no one knows about. If you want to watch the others, the playlist is linked in the video description below. Now let's take a look at the animals. In the world of terrestrial arthropods, millions of species would be unfamiliar to the average person. But sometimes, even entire orders have managed to go overlooked. One of the strangest orders of insects is the scorpionflies. They belong to the order Mechoterra, a small and ancient group with roughly 600 species. The scorpion-like tail on the male is not a stinger, but in fact part of the genitalia, lifted in a threat display, much like a scorpion's tail. Most scorpionflies are scavengers that clean up dead insects, and some will even steal prey from spire webs. Some of the strangest species in this group are the snow scorpionflies, which are either wingless or have very short wings, and can stay active in winter, walking across the snow. Meanwhile, one of the least known arachnid orders is the hooded tick spiders. They look like small, armored spiders, but are probably more closely related to ticks and mites. They live in leaf litter and caves across tropical Africa and the Americas, yet are rarely mentioned in popular nature literature or media. Each has a hinged hood that closes over the mouthparts like a visor, a trait unique among arachnids. They're slow-moving and blind, navigating by touch and smell. And although they're widespread, their obscurity means that they're rarely studied, and many species are known only from a handful of specimens. Butterflies are known and loved by almost everyone, but I recently saw an image of a species that I think more people ought to know about. The Rinaldis jewelmark. If you just saw it with its wings open, you might find it beautiful, but not particularly memorable. The upper part of the wings is generally iridescent silvery blue set against black. But when you see it resting with its wings closed is when it really stands out as something remarkable. Not only are the undersides of the wings an earthy green with silver stripes, but the legs are covered in long bushy pink hairs. The Rinaldis jewelmark is found in from Nicaragua down through Peru, where it spends all of its time in streamside habitats. Insects are by far my favorite animals on earth, and beetles, for me, are the best of the best. So there aren't very many species that really surprise me. But one beetle that still leaves me in awe every time I see it is the incredibly strange violin beetle. It's a ground beetle from Southeast Asia, but it looks nothing like most of the other ground beetles. They can be as much as 10 centimeters long and have translucent elytra that flare wide, giving them a body shape similar to a violin. The rest of the body is flattened so it can slip under loose bark and into tight crevices, allowing it to hide from predators and hunt smaller insects. Because of its strange appearance and relatively large size, it's often dried and mounted as art. Looking at this picture, what do you see? I'm guessing you probably said an ant. But did you notice that it looks like it has two abdomens? That's because the smaller, darker abdomen on top isn't part of the ant at all. It's a beetle that was described in 2017, and one of the strangest insects I've ever heard of. The nymphister beetle has only been recorded at La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica, and is only associated with a single host species of army ant. As night approaches, these beetles seek out medium-sized workers and lock onto the ant's waist with their mandibles. They then tuck their legs and antennae into recessed grooves and ride along with the ants for the evening. The beetle is only about one and a half millimeters long, and their disguise works so well that other ants will sometimes groom it, which suggests that it also has the ability to match the colony's chemical sense. Researchers still don't know where it spends the day or what it eats. What we do know is that its life cycle is so closely tied with this one species of ant that it has evolved a way to stay with them, taking a ride along during their nightly moves. For amphibians and reptiles, there are plenty of species that might surprise you, especially if you aren't really in the world of keeping them as pets. In the leaf litter of the Amazon live the disk frogs. They survive out of sight, and only when it rains can they be heard making calls from beneath the soil that sound like faint electronic beeps. Their bodies are short and round, they have small forelimbs, and they have strange drooping snouts. They're incredibly small, with the largest species measuring about 40 millimeters from snout to vent. There are 10 known species, and because they're so small and live below the surface, the first two weren't described until 1975. A third species was described in 1977, but the other seven went unnoticed for decades, not being described until 2021, 2022, and 2023. Almost nothing is known about their day-to-day lives, and there may be many more species of these strange small frogs left to be discovered. Up in Central America, the Yucatan Peninsula has its own species of frog with a strange snout. Yucatan cask-headed tree frogs can't be missed. The skin on their heads is fused to their skulls, forming a bony cask. In dry weather, they retreat into tree holes and use their odd casks to seal the entrance, a behavior called phragmosis, which helps protect them from losing water and from being eaten by predators. When the rain comes, the males sit on low branches and begin calling for a mate, a call which happens to sound a bit like a quacking duck. They're widespread across the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and neighboring Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala. The Spotted Lightbulb Lizard is a small, secretive species found in the Andes Mountains of southern Ecuador. They live under leaf litter and stones in the headwaters of the Paute River, and have a known range of only about 1,300 square kilometers, with scattered, fragmented populations. Their limbs are short, and their smooth bodies are built for slipping into the soil so that they can stay in the shade. This is incredibly important, as the Spotted Lightbulb Lizard has an extreme sensitivity to heat. So much so, that an individual can die after only being exposed to the sun for a brief time. There are even reports that the species can't be handled safely, as the heat produced by human skin is enough to kill the lizards after only a few seconds of contact. The species is rarely seen and is listed as vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN, while the government of Ecuador lists it as endangered. Green-Blooded Skinks are aptly named. While they may look like ordinary lizards, once you get under their skin it becomes apparent just how strange they really are. Their blood, muscles, and even their bones are bright green, because they carry extreme levels of the bile pigment biliverdin. In fact, they carry it in concentrations that would be toxic to most other vertebrates. They're native to New Guinea and some nearby islands, and the green blood is hypothesized to protect them from contracting malaria, or possibly offer some sort of chemical defense. Some species also have small, bristle-like hairs on their toe pads known as setae, which make their feet similar to some species of gecko or anole. This helps them to live arboreal lives, a trait that isn't common among skinks. Over in the moist forests and swamps of Southeast Asia, the dragon snake is anything but ordinary. This slender species is charcoal gray and has three raised rows of keeled scales, giving it a texture akin to the armor of a mythical dragon. It's nocturnal, spending nights hunting frogs, tadpoles, and small fish along stream edges, while by day it hides in dark leaf litter or muddy burrows near the water. When threatened, it freezes and stiffens its whole body, a very peculiar defense tactic. Although seldom seen, it appears to tolerate disturbed habitats like rice fields, which are common across the Malay Peninsula and greater Sunda Islands where it lives. Because the species fares poorly in captivity, it isn't widely kept as a pet, which helps keep collection pressure low. Because of this, combined with its broad range and its ability to adapt, it's currently listed as least concern by the IUCN. In the world's oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams lives such a huge variety of fish that it would be impossible to know every species. Most follow familiar forms, but caves in China are home to a genus of freshwater fish that are among the strangest on earth, and most people don't even know that they exist. The genus Cenocyclochilus includes some fairly normal looking fish, like the Yunnan Golden Lion Barbel. This species once thrived in Dian Lake, and being a surface dwelling species, nothing about it really stands out. But many other members of the genus live in isolated limestone caves and underground streams, with most species restricted to a single system. As a result, many of these cave dwellers have lost their eyes and pigmentation, and some have developed odd humps or horn-like structures on their heads, the purpose of which remains unknown. Over 70 species have been discovered, and new ones continue to be described, including this species, which was described in 2023. It was given the specific name Longicornis thanks to the long horn projecting from its forehead. Each isolated species represents a unique and highly specialized lineage, and the genus is one of the greatest radiations of cave fish species on earth. Out in the open ocean, there's a small family of fish that may not be familiar to you, yet they're among the most visually striking in the sea, the fanfishes. They belong to just two genera, and what makes them extraordinary are their enormous sail-like fins that rise high above their bodies, giving them a shape unlike almost any other fish. This is the prickly fanfish, a silvery species with an angular, paper-thin body, and long, elegant fins that spread like veils. It lives in warm oceans worldwide, but is rarely encountered, and has almost never been filmed alive. Even more impressive is the Pacific fanfish. It's even rarer, being mostly an offshore pelagic fish across the Pacific. It's so rarely seen that the majority of the photos of this species come from specimens pulled out of the stomachs of tuna or that were accidentally caught by deep-sea trawlers. But the rarest of them all is the spotted fanfish. It looks very similar to the Pacific fanfish, but has a series of white spots on its fins. This species is found in deep water around New Zealand, southern Australia, and southern Africa, and almost nothing is known about it. The sunfishes are well-known, especially the larger species in the genus Mola, but there's a closely related, monotypic genus, Ranzinia, that almost no one talks about. Its only species, the slender sunfish, isn't a huge round species like its relatives, but narrow, laterally compressed, and torpedo-shaped, with long dorsal and anal fins, and no true tail, ending instead in a stiff rudder called a clavus. Adults can reach up to a meter in length, with bold blue-purple bars and blotches on their silvery bodies. They live in warm and temperate seas worldwide, but are rarely seen except when stranded or caught incidentally. Down in the deep sea lives another unusual flattened fish, the deep-water flounder. Most flounders are rather plain, being modeled for camouflage, and this species is no different, except for the addition of an impressive and strange fin. Unlike other flounders, its body isn't perfectly flat, and it tends to swim more than other species and bury itself in the sediment less. It's believed that this strange fin helps it to maintain lift and stability while it swims. It likely also plays a role in helping it avoid predation by making its true body shape more confusing. Going even deeper, the deep sea is home to a fish with one of the strangest visual systems ever found. The brown snout spookfish may look fairly normal in scientific drawings, but images of living individuals show just how strange it really is. The species has upward facing tubular eyes to watch the faint light from above, but each eye also carries a downward facing diverticulum that forms images using a mirrored surface instead of a lens, making it only known vertebrate to use a mirror to focus light. Its body is long, delicate, and translucent, with a transparent dome over its eyes, making it somewhat similar in appearance to the better-known barreleye fish. We're probably all familiar with cormorants, but there's a slim, smoky grey species that might be the most beautiful species of cormorant in the world. The red-legged cormorant is unmistakable, having a dusky grey body, silvery speckled wings, an orange and red bill, and bright red legs. Unlike many seabirds, they don't form colonies, and they also don't spread their wings to dry out like most other cormorant species are famous for. They hunt close to the shore near kelp and rocks, and can be found on South America's Pacific coast from Peru down through Chile, with another small population on Argentina's southern Atlantic coast. The species is near threatened, with a small population and declining numbers that's been linked to fisheries bycatch and persistent disturbance on the cliff sites that they inhabit. It's estimated that fewer than 15,000 survive in the world, with around 70% of those in Chile. Further inland, Patagonia has a goose that's built for the wind and rain. The ashy-headed goose is smaller than many geese, and easy to recognize, with its pale grey head, rusty brown upper chest and back, and striking black and white barring across the flanks. The species favors forest edges, boggy meadows, and lakeshores, where it spends a lot of time using reed beds and low shrubs for cover. Outside the breeding season, some birds move north, showing up in central Chile and Argentina in winter. While the ashy-headed goose can swim well, most of its day is spent walking and feeding on grass close to the water. In the Caribbean, there's a group of birds that almost look fake. The toadies. They belong to a family of small, brightly colored birds that are found only on the islands of the Greater Antilles. They're closely related to motmots, kingfishers, and rollers, and like their relatives, they sit motionless on low branches, then dart out in a flash to snatch up prey, like insects, before returning to their perch. Despite their bright colors and proximity to humans, they're still rarely seen because they stay quiet, hardly move, and their mostly green bodies help them blend in with the forest cover. There are five species, one in Jamaica, one in Cuba, one in Puerto Rico, and two on the island of Hispaniola, which encompasses Haiti and the Dominican Republic. On the other side of the world, high in the mountain forests of New Guinea, lives one of the world's strangest and least studied birds, the feline owlet nightjar. It belongs to a small Australasian family of nocturnal birds, related to nightjars and frogmouths. But unlike them, it has a cat-like face, with large, forward-facing eyes, a broad head, and whisker-like modified feathers around its beak. The species spends its days hidden in the trees, emerging at night to hunt insects. It's the largest species of owlet nightjar, and it's found only in the mossy cloud forests above 1,000 meters in elevation on the island of New Guinea. The larger toucan species are also fairly well known. The Arasari is not as much. And perhaps the strangest species of Arasari is found in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru. The curl-crested Arasari. It's instantly recognizable by the shiny, curly black feathers that cover its head, making it almost appear as though it has a perm or is wearing a wig. These strange feathers may help individuals recognize each other or play a role in courtship, but the precise function remains unknown. They have a similar texture to curled ribbon or cassette film, and are different enough from other Arasaris that they form their own monotypic genus. They live in groups of up to 12 birds that move noisily through the canopy in search of fruit, nest in tree cavities, and thankfully remain fairly common through much of their range, though deforestation and hunting are likely causing the population to decline. In the forests of Southeast Asia lives an animal that looks like a cross between a skunk and a badger, but it isn't either. The Sunda stink badger, also known as the Teledu, was once thought to be most closely related to Old World badgers, hence its name, but recent genetic studies have shown that it shares a more recent common ancestor with the New World skunks, and it's now placed with them in the family Mephitidae. They can be found on the islands of Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, where they spend their digging through soil for worms, insects, and roots. Just like skunks, stink badgers can spray a foul smelling liquid when threatened, powerful enough to be smelled hundreds of meters away, and their black and white pattern serves as a warning of this defense mechanism. It's a shy and solitary animal, rarely seen and still not well studied in the wild. The only other species of stink badger is the Palawan stink badger, found on the Philippine island of Palawan, as well as a few other nearby islands. Madagascar has many species of mammal that are poorly known, apart from the lemurs. The DreamWorks movie Madagascar brought the fossa into public knowledge. Fossas are in the family Eupleridae, which is only found on Madagascar, and is most closely related to the mongooses of mainland Africa. But many of these small carnivores are hardly ever talked about. The ring-tailed vonsera is one of the most striking species in the family. It's a slim, chestnut-colored animal with a long tail banded in black. They're found in the humid forests of eastern Madagascar, where they're active by day and highly agile, spending time both in the trees and on the forest floor hunting for small animals and eggs. While still relatively common along the mountainous eastern side of the island, they've been in decline since the 1980s due to habitat loss, hunting, and competition for food with the introduced small Indian civet. The family Eupleridae also contains two species of Falunuk, which are far less conspicuous and look like a Unlike the predatory vonsera, the Falunuk feed mostly on earthworms and larvae, using their narrow snouts and reduced teeth to probe through soil and leaf litter. Both species are quiet and slow-moving, with one living in the eastern rainforests and the other in the dry northwest. They face the same threats as the ring-tailed vonsera, but much less is known about them. In fact, they're so elusive that researchers aren't even sure if they're diurnal or nocturnal. The eastern Falunuk has been assessed as threatened, while the more recently described western Falunuk is listed as endangered. South America is also home to some mammals that you may not have heard about, the viscachas. They're in the same family as the chinchillas, and some species look quite similar. Of the five living species of viscacha, four live high in the Andes. The mountain viscachas have soft fur and large ears, and they spend their lives among rocky slopes and cliffs. The most recently described species is the Ecuadorian viscacha, which was only discovered in 2005. It's so rare that only a handful of photos of the species can be found online, and it's estimated that only a few dozen survive in the world. Meanwhile, down on the grasslands of Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia, lives the plains viscacha. This large, burrow-dwelling species is highly social, living in large colonies that can stretch across wide areas of grassland. They have black and facial markings, and smaller ears than other viscacha species. But perhaps their strangest behavior is their affinity for collecting branches and rocks to cover their burrow entrances. They sometimes also collect bones. And when found in proximity to humans, they'll actually collect a variety of man-made objects to bring back to their burrow entrances. In Australia's arid interior lives one of the smallest marsupials in the world, the placident planagale. This tiny marsupial predator is smaller than most species of mouse, weighing less than 6 grams, and is able to squeeze through cracks only a few millimeters wide. Like other planagales, it's nocturnal, preying on insects, spiders, and small vertebrates, even able to tackle prey almost as large as itself. Placident means few-toothed, which is what sets this species apart from other planagales. The placident planagale has just 6 teeth on its lower jaw, fewer than any other marsupial. It's rarely seen due to its secretive habits and the remote, sparsely populated areas that it inhabits. It's so elusive that it wasn't even scientifically described until 1972. The species is considered threatened in some parts of its range, not only because it's hunted by introduced predators like foxes and cats, but because it's also small enough to be consumed by the much larger introduced cane toad. And that's it for this week's video. How many of these species were new to you? And don't forget that if you enjoyed learning about these obscure animals, I have three other videos linked below that you can check out. I need to say a special thanks to my Patrons. Without their ongoing support, I wouldn't be able to make a video like this every week. If you want to support the channel, consider joining us on Patreon. The link is in the video description below. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.