I think its called a 'Giant Isopod'.

http://lantzy.com/wordpress/wp-content/ ... oritos.jpg

I love those buggers. Kinda cute, if you like giant crustaceans from hell.

Looks sort of like an overgrown Balmain Bug!

One of my favorite animals: The mata mata turtle:



These things are cool because they actually suck their prey (fish typically)into their mouth by expanding their throat and creating a vacuum and swallow it whole.

This is a pic of a Deep-sea Frilled Shark taken near Japan!

That is without a doubt the coolest thing I have seen all day.

Why is it most of these creatures lurk around the benthic zones?


One creature that isn't really odd but that would of freaked the crap out of me is the prehistoric megalodon - which I am sure most of you here know of. The thing was enormous. Bigger then any other shark known today. It was said to have been able to feed off of some species of whale.

Just imagine if some of those ancient marine animals were around today. The waters of our earth are indeed an awesome and mysterious place.

I know the planet earth series that was on TV has a ton of really interesting and wierd looking deep sea creatures that i've never seen before.

Whatever it is, it looks cool.


Edit: Hippiedrow worded it far better than I did.

I remember seeing the video of this. Unfortunately, the animal was dying at the time it was taken.

That's all too often the case with cool deep-sea critters--squid, wierd sharks, etc.

Giant Isopod, front view! Looks intelligent with Alien like eyes!

Megalodon Jaw



Illustration

Here's another pic of the Giant Isopod--they're badass looking:


http://mark-ariu.de/WordpressNeu/eigene ... opod_2.jpg


Edit: Sentienth696 beat me to the proverbial punch...

My favorite is the King of Herrings

http://images.google.se/imgres?imgurl=h ... v%26sa%3DN

This thread reminded me of this image:

Not a sea creature, but extremely cool nonetheless--the Coconut Crab (the largest hermit crab species)...


Here's one raiding a garbage can:

http://www.kottke.org/plus/misc/images/coconut-crab.jpg

check out the japanese spider crab too

Not an aquatic being, these usually like in jungles, but I fidd the cordyceps unilateralis to be compleatly fascinating. What it does is it goes into an ant, and then changes how that ant's brain interprets pheremones (spelled correctly?). So what ends up happening is that the ant climbs up to a high area in a plant, so that the cordyceps unilateralis can spread it's spores. We watched a movie about it in my biology class.
Here is a picture of a dead ant infected with it.

Don't know what the hell this is??? Looks like an under water Pokemon!

Hehe, that things kinda cute in a weird way.

That's almost a fucking Mudkip.

Thats a modified image of some kind of creature so it looks like Mudkip. They're white normally. I forget the name now, but they ARE real.

Anyway... I know about the cordyceps things. Read a cool horror story on it about a guy who was stationed in the jungle and got infected with it, then eventually said he was going to see his brother. He goes to the top of his brother's apartment building, and when his brother goes up there he finds him dead with the fungus growing out of his head. Then he looks and sees that the spores would be going down the wall... Into his room. Fun read.

It's an Axolotl, I think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl

It is almost as if Mudkip was based on that.

Mantis Shrimp.

Which is a Mexican Walking Fish. Hmm, I think the previous pic may just be modified!

Another mantis shrimp. That thing looks like something from the beast wars era of transformers.

Bahahaha! Those freaks can punch holes in 1/4 inch thick glass! I love them, they're the manliest things in the ocean. They fist fight with other Mantis shrimp!

This thread lacks lionfish:





The fish is variously known as the lion fish, the dragon fish, the scorpion fish, and the turkey fish, but curiously absent from this list is fucking DEATH INCARNATE.



I'm just glad these fuckers don't come car sized, because if one of those was charging you, the only possible outcome would be immediate and aggravated passing of your bowels then and there.

That reminds me of a chinese dragon

It looks like a giant floating phallus.

how about the lamprey?

Lamprey are tasty

How can you eat that...

Very happily and with great enthusiasm.

Is that even a fish?

Yup. It's just a jawless fish. It looks normal apart from its mouth.

Lamprey deserve to be eaten, as they are scary little bastards to have clamp on to your anything.

It looks liike the vagina sandpit from Star Wars.