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Within the animal kingdom, there’s no shortage of bizarre bodily functions that will leave you wondering what on Earth Mother Nature was thinking. How do the inner workings of the animal kingdom compare to ours? While we share many similarities with our animal counterparts, there are also stark differences.
It’s clear that these differences are mainly physical. In fact, if you encountered someone with any of the abilities listed below, you might assume something went terribly wrong at birth. However, for these creatures, these unique bodily functions are entirely normal and crucial to their survival in their natural habitats.
10. Chinese Softshell Turtle
Humans have specific ideas about where waste should come from, but the Chinese softshell turtle doesn’t conform to those norms. This creature actually urinates through its mouth without a second thought.
Chinese softshell turtles make their homes in freshwater environments. While submerged, they excrete urea from their mouths. On land, they’ll seek out a puddle or any nearby body of water to submerge their heads and urinate.
This unusual bodily function doesn’t prevent the Chinese softshell turtle from being highly sought after. It is extensively traded across Asia for use as food and in traditional medicine, making it a vulnerable species.
9. Sea Spider
At first glance, the spindly sea spider seems to be all legs with little else. It looks like a bunch of long spider legs stuck to a half-toothpick. Given its unusual body structure, nature had to get creative to ensure this little creature’s survival.
For instance, a sea spider’s blood doesn’t circulate primarily through its heart, but rather through its gut. Unlike humans, whose digestive systems are contained, the sea spider’s gut runs throughout its entire body. Additionally, these creatures lack a respiratory system. Instead, oxygen is absorbed and expelled through their legs.
The spider also depends on its legs for reproduction, as that’s where all its reproductive organs are located. The female stores eggs in her thighs, which she releases through specialized pores. The male then scoops them up and carries them after fertilizing them through similar pores in his own legs.
8. Gardiner’s Frog
About a third of the size of a human fingernail, the tiny Gardiner’s frog possesses another extraordinary trait: It can hear through its mouth. A 2013 scientific study revealed that the frog detects sound waves via a cavity in its mouth, which then sends the information to the frog’s brain.
These frogs were once believed to be deaf because they lack a middle ear and, therefore, have no eardrum for sound to resonate with. The research team tested this theory by recording the frogs’ sounds and playing them back to a separate group of frogs.
When the frogs reacted to the playback, researchers set out to determine how the frogs could hear. By simulating the frog’s head, they discovered that the mouth cavity vibrates in sync with the frequency of the frog’s call, much like an eardrum would.
Gardiner’s frog is found exclusively on the small island nation of Seychelles. This species is currently considered endangered, largely due to habitat destruction caused by wildfires, invasive species, and human activity.
7. Shark Electroreception
The animal kingdom boasts several abilities that humans can only dream of, and electroreception is one of them. This ability enables animals to sense electrical fields. Since all living things emit their own electrical fields, this skill is useful for hunting prey or evading predators. Imagine it—no one could sneak up on you while you’re browsing sketchy websites.
Electroreception is primarily found in fish and amphibians, as it is most effective in water. However, sharks possess the most advanced electroreception abilities. These deep-sea hunters can respond to electrical signals as faint as a mere millionth of a volt while submerged.
Sharks’ electroreceptors, known as ampullae of Lorenzini, are a network of jelly-filled pores embedded in their skin. Each pore has a bulb-like structure, called an ampulla, through which electrical currents travel across the jelly and stimulate the ampulla, transmitting the signals to the shark’s brain.
6. Fruit Flies Taste With Their Entire Body
Imagine indulging in an ice cream sundae by spreading it all over your body. Before you dismiss this visual as strange, think of it as a near-perfect analogy for how the modest fruit fly experiences the world.
While fruit flies don’t have the refined taste senses of humans (for example, they can’t tell the difference between a piece of meat and a potato chip), their taste receptors are able to differentiate between sweet and bitter. These receptors are found all over their bodies—on their legs, wings, extending proboscis used to suck up food, and even on the ovipositor (the organ used to lay eggs).
UC Berkeley researchers discovered that the fruit fly’s brain is capable of mapping the location of the taste, identifying the type of taste, and assessing whether the food is safe for consumption. In the insect world, it’s common to have taste receptors located all over the body. For example, butterflies and houseflies taste using their feet, while honeybees and some wasp species have taste receptors on their antennae.
5. The Clear-Blooded Fish of the Deep
In the icy waters of the Southern Ocean, the ocellated icefish thrives with special adaptations to survive the frigid temperatures. Their hearts are approximately five times larger than those of typical fish, ensuring that their blood circulates effectively.
However, ocellated icefish lack hemoglobin, the protein responsible for giving blood its red color and transporting oxygen throughout the body. As a result, their blood is entirely clear—much like the mysterious, transparent blood seen in that unsettling alien movie you’ve probably dreamt about since childhood.
In this frigid region, the icefish’s plasma is capable of absorbing oxygen directly, compensating for the absence of hemoglobin. It’s a remarkable reminder that life finds ways to persist, even in the extreme cold of our planet’s southernmost waters.
4. Elephant Stomping
Let’s move from the frozen depths to the massive elephant. When it comes to communication, elephants have a variety of tools at their disposal. Of course, we all know their iconic trumpeting calls, but they also communicate by flapping their enormous ears and producing low-frequency rumbles between 10 and 40 Hz—sounds so deep, they’re inaudible to humans (we can’t hear anything below 20 Hz).
Elephants can sense these low-frequency rumbles thanks to bone conduction, specialized middle ears, and their highly sensitive toes and trunks. Researchers call this unique ability seismic communication. Not only do they use it to warn each other about danger and locate food sources, but they can also detect subtle differences in the sound, helping them pinpoint its exact location and determine the appropriate response.
3. Tentacled Snake
There are a couple of things that snakes should never have: wings and tentacles. Thankfully, winged snakes haven’t been discovered (yet), but there is a species that went against the grain of evolution by growing tentacles at some point in its development.
The tentacled snake (Erpeton tentaculatus) can be found in Thailand and Vietnam, dwelling in slow-moving or stagnant bodies of water. During the dry season, the snake buries itself in mud until the rains bring relief.
So, what purpose do the tentacles serve for this snake? Researchers have discovered that these unusual appendages are hypersensitive receptors, capable of detecting even the faintest movements in the water. This heightened sense is key to the snake’s ability to hunt for fish.
2. The Guitarfish’s Retractable Eyes
Here’s another fascinating fish with remarkable eye abilities. The giant guitarfish, named for its distinct shape, appears to be an unusual hybrid between a manta ray and a shark.
Instead of eyelids, this fish has the remarkable ability to retract its eyes about 3.8 centimeters (1.5 inches) into its head. This built-in defense mechanism proves quite useful, as the fish hunts along the sandy ocean floor for its prey.
It turns out that many creatures share this ocular skill. Frogs, for example, can also retract their eyeballs. Even most mammals—including dogs, cats, and pigs—can draw their eyes back into their heads.
1. Fish With Creepy Flashlights For Eyes
If there's one thing the deep sea has taught us, it’s that life adapts in strange ways without sunlight. Deep-sea fish have evolved eyes not to capture sunlight but to detect the glow of other creatures.
Bioluminescent fish are a common sight in the deep, and the deep-sea dragonfish is no exception. With its red lights beneath its eyes and sharp, needlelike teeth, this fish looks as terrifying as you’d expect.
Its eyes are uniquely attuned to the reddish-orange wavelength of light, giving the dragonfish an edge since only blue light can penetrate the ocean (which is why the sea appears blue).
Because the dragonfish is one of the few creatures able to both see and emit red light, it can quietly signal to others and use its eerie red glow to illuminate prey that would otherwise remain hidden.
