Fantastic Beasts You Could Actually Find

I recently* attended a particularly academic dinner party, at which each guest was invited to present a five-minute talk on absolutely anything.

The topics covered were satisfyingly representative of my exceptional friends and their own passions and interests. We moved from a discussion of how cheap fast fashion reinforces capitalism, to why elves are essentially responsible for every fictional universe's issues, to what exactly my mate does for a living.

Unsurprisingly, I planned to talk about animals. And while I spent a while considering researching how a real fire-breathing dragon could actually exist (it would have been a real crowd pleaser), in the end I decided I respected real dragons too much to focus on a fictional animal.

Instead, I put together a slide show including both fictional and real fantastic creatures, which had the delightful effect of confusing the hell out of my friends.

I'll save you the tricks in this blog post and only present the animals that are categorically-certainly-absolutely-almost-definitely real, I promise. (Or are they?...)

Shield Shrimp (Triops australiensis)

[caption id="attachment_229" align="alignnone" width="1663"] Image: Internet Archive Book Images/Flickr[/caption]

This prehistoric creature has pretty much looked the same since the Triassic period. That's over 199 million years ago, when dinosaurs were still around...if that doesn't completely blow your mind then get out (or keep reading - something else might interest your twisted mind).

The Shield Shrimp can grow to around the size of a fist and has 60 legs which it breathes through, because who needs lungs? It appears in muddy puddles after rain in the arid lands of Australia, and causes excitement in (already excitable) ecology interns for weeks following...

Green-banded Broodsac (Leucochloridium paradoxum)

 

[caption id="attachment_246" align="alignnone" width="2032"] Image: Baudon/Wikimedia[/caption]

These parasitic flatworms use snails as their intermediate host in order to get at their definitive host: birds.

The flatworm infects snail's eye stalks so they move and flash like a caterpillar flashing their hazard lights, which turns out to be a great way to attract birds. The worm even manages to control the snail's mind and drive it into open areas, just in case a hungry bird couldn't spot the disco ball in the undergrowth.

The result is a happily ingested flatworm, a very screwed over (and eaten) snail, and a now infected bird. And so the (beautiful) life cycle continues.

Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea)

[caption id="attachment_248" align="alignnone" width="1284"] Image: Internet Archive Book Image/Flickr[/caption]

This magnificent bird circumnavigates the globe, undertaking the longest known migration of any animal in the world. It can travel a total of 2.4 million kilometres over its lifetime!

A virtually new fledgling can fly from London to Melbourne (over 22,000 km!) within a couple of months, and the species also flies from Canada to South Africa. That sure puts my marathon aspirations to shame.

Trilling Frog (Neobatrachus centralis)

[caption id="attachment_257" align="aligncenter" width="851"] Image**: Internet Archive Book Images/Flickr[/caption]

Like Shield Shrimp, these incredible amphibians emerge from underground after rainfall in arid regions. In some areas, these creatures are the most abundant vertebrate; the most common animal with a back-bone. Yet you can't see them!

Because they're hiding underground in torpor. Lying in wait...

Peacock Mantis Shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus)

[caption id="attachment_249" align="aligncenter" width="841"] Image: Biodiversity Heritage Library/Flickr[/caption]

This tiny crustacean has the fastest punch in the world. Its limb moves like an explosive latch or spring and the resulting force is 10,000 times the force of gravity!

The shrimp's punch is so fast it lowers the water pressure in front of them causing it to boil and emit light. (No big deal).

An electrotrophic bacterium (Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans)

Now here's a species which is pretty much a sci-fi alien come to life. So insane that no picture can really do it justice.

This bacterium feeds on electricity. That's right. Now pull your jaw off the floor and read on.

They feed on electrons which, to be fair, we all ultimately feed on through the magical process of cellular respiration in the powerhouses of our cells: the mitochondria. Surprise!

The difference is that we get our electrons from our food through glucose molecules. This bacterium usually uses Fe²⁺ ions as its electron source instead, but when these are not available the species has another option.

It is capable of sourcing its ions directly from an electrode, or in other words, directly from an electrical current! A species feeding on electricity, just wow...what's next evolution?

Gastric-brooding Frog (Rheobatrachus genus)

[caption id="attachment_256" align="alignright" width="298"] Image: Kelsey McGilvrey[/caption]

Like something out of the original fairytales, this frog (or rather, its genus) is famous for the females brooding young in their stomachs.

Once the eggs are fertilised the mother swallows them and the tadpoles hatch inside her stomach, only emerging once morphed into tiny froglets. Seriously. You can't make this stuff up.

The sad part? They're extinct; no individual has been sighted since 1981.

The species most likely went extinct due to chytrid fungus: a pathogen greatly threatening frogs worldwide to this day, and a pathogen humans are responsible for spreading.

All the animals above are truly fantastical and, in my humble (and biased) opinion, truly worth preserving. This is one of the reasons why both "basic" and applied research are so important.

One to find the wonder, and one to keep it.

Thanks to my lab mates Holly and Katie for suggesting some of these fantastic beasts!

*was recent when I first drafted this post...

**This image is not a drawing of the Trilling Frog. I apologise for this, but also feel fairly confident that 2 weeks of searching for one frog sketch is enough...