In Australia we have more than enough critters that can well and trully mess up your day The Box Jellyfish Irukandji (A Jellyfish) Salt Water Crocodile Blue Ring Octopus Stone Fish Red Back Spider Brown Snake Tiger Snake Taipan ( a snake Great White Shark Funnel Web Spider Even a red kangaroo and Cassowary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Cassowary are capabale of inflicting serious injury
All right, this may turn into a doozie because I don't just have pictures but also serious nerdrants to make about the fishpix already posted by others. I've decided to make my first post devoted to responses, my second will be my Focus. Feel free to ignore this post if you only care about pics. Spoiler tags are real here, because I might spoil your fear with my silly informative rantings. Also the spoilers inside are all nsfw, simply because you apparently can't put two spoiler tags inside each other. All the pics are work safe, despite nsfw tags. Spoiler Only problem with hatchetfish and anglerfish is that they're fucking tiny. Most of them cap out at a few inches, and anglerfish teeth and bones are deossified to conserve resources and energy by reducing the effort needed to stay neutrally buoyant, since food is very scarce that deep. This means getting attacked by an anglerfish would be the equivalent of fighting Arnold Schwarzenegger...if Schwarzenegger was a two inch tall starving Ethiopian grandmother with osteoporosis. The notable exception of the group is the monkfish, which actually lives in shallow waters and is pretty big. Pics NSFW Hatchetfish are pretty cool though, they live in the twilight zone and are masters of stealth. I won't get into a drawn out explanation, suffice to say you can literally be looking right at one with nothing around it but water and not see it unless you shine a light directly on it. But it's still tiny. I'd argue viperfish would be more fearsome than either hatchetfish or anglerfish for one simple reason, viperfish are active predators. That's right, the other two sit around praying to god that something smaller falls/swims past, viperfish fucking hunt shit down. They even use infrared light they generate to do short range scans as they swim and can literally see fish who can't see them. NSFW Only thing is they're also fucking tiny. Triggerfish are gnarly, they'll tirelessly and mercilessly attack anything that comes near their seabed nests, and I've heard their bites can hurt. One of my professors accidentally wandered into triggerfish territory when she got too consumed taking notes on the seabed. She said the thing bashed its face into her goggles once or twice before she managed to swim the fuck away, and it was still charging at her and backing off just before impact a couple times. Squid are also kind of ridiculous. They're like the goats of the ocean, they'll literally attempt to eat anything smaller than themselves including other squid. These things are the closest to mythical mindlessly-aggressive/hungry sea monsters you're gonna get. Halibut are really freaky to watch when they're alive. It's a thousand times weirder to see that sideways mouth gasping in real time than seeing it in a picture. You just can't help but think it's the result of a really bad beating from some sort of undersea mafia. My friend went diving and fed a moray mouth to mouth. He pulled the octopus (the bit of the SCUBA gear that's in your mouth) and put the fish flesh between his teeth and the moray came out and pulled the food out of his mouth. He said it was freaky as fuck, but apparently the dive leader said it was a fun option. I'm wondering whether the dive leader just wanted to reduce the number of bodies weighing down the boat. Dammit, first thing I thought when I saw this thread was "Well, guess I'll be pulling out the Lamprey pics again." Dammit man, forcing me to pull out something more original... FUCK YOU I'LL DO IT ANYWAY NSFW Something inside me smiles when I see an invertebrate eating a vertebrate. It screams "FUCK YOU, EVOLUTION"
A few off the top of my head... Remoras Spoiler Ocean Sunfish/Mola molas Spoiler Gars Spoiler Hagfish. These guys are freaky both in appearance and in function. Some researchers argue that they're the only animals that are craniates but not vertebrates. In other words they have a skull, but no other bones. They eat by taking a hunk of carrion in their mouth, and tying themselves in a knot, and using the leverage of the knot to pull a hunk out of the body. They also generate huge quantities of mucous, there's a video showing just that. Spoiler And Whip Scorpions are always freaky. Spoiler Potato bugs Spoiler And finally, lotus seeds look like a disease: Spoiler Don't believe me? How about now? NSFW Whew.
If you live anywhere near where I live, you've probably come across one of these nasty assholes as a kid: a Snapping Turtle. These things are almost comicly viscious and aggressive. They are not impartial to chasing after you and are not fun to bump into if you're in a creek. Their bite can crush your hand like an egg and their head can lunge further out than you think.
I will see your Snapping Turtle and raise you an Alligator Snapping Turtle: Spoiler I lived near a swamp growing up and these things were constantly getting out in the road and just sitting there, daring you to fuck with them. One of them moved into my family's pond - during its "stay," it fucking ATE BABY DUCKS AND GEESE whenever it got hungry. We got lucky and found it roaming the yard one day, so we caught it (which took us hours to do) and took it far, far, FAR away from our house. They can grow anywhere from 16 to 32 inches long, the biggest one ever recorded weighed in at about 240 pounds (but one unconfirmed report tells of one that weighed in at 400+ pounds), and they are believed to have a lifespan of anywhere from 70-150 years. Seriously...you do NOT want to fuck with these things.
I've caught both of these on a rod and reel. They're fucking dicks. Caught the remora off the back of an anchored sailboat using a lure and a fucking cheeto puff on the hook. Didn't know what it was, but it took off and initially felt like I got caught on the bottom. Then we noticed what looked to be an immense amount of floating shit on the top of the water, and given that my mother was at the time using the head at the time (and the head emptied into the ocean), we immediately started cursing her. We ended up in the dinghy, trying to get the line "unsnagged" when we realized the damn remora had suctioned onto the bottom of the boat and was actually the one shitting all in the water. Took a paddle to get it off. The gar, I caught on the surface of the water. It kept cutting my line with its teeth and the hook wouldn't catch in it's mouth (and I was just trying to fish for bass or whatever), so I got a small perch, cut it up, put a wire leader on the end of my line and let it float on top of the water next to the dock. Took a few tries, but eventually I got one to bite the bait, then using the tip of my rod would the leader around it's beak/mouth real quick, pulled up on the rod and flung it into the yard. Fuck remoras and gars.
I can top that. River Blindness. Spoiler Parasites with a 15 year long life that live under your skin and cause permanent blindness? Yeah.
Candiru. IT EATS YOUR COCK. What part of that don't you get? You know why Stevie Wonder is always smiling? The mother fucker knows his eyes may not work, but he still has a dick. Ray Charles? Same deal. Get your priorities straight.
Just to nerd out one more time. It's a parasitic catfish that usually parasitizes the gill slits or operculum of other fish. It's been known to swim up human urethras by mistake, but once it's in there it dies pretty quickly. But it's dead and still latched on inside you, so you've got to have it surgically removed. No it's not a penis-seeking-rocket, yes it's still ridiculous.
(I'm being so fucking serious right now...if you like to sleep at night then do not click this) Spoiler AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!! I have eaten on of those bastards, was awesome. Ever hear of the food chain Pink Cup, we own it. This is the Australian funnell web, it can kill you and is one mean ugly fuck.
If you snorkel or dive where I live,It's only a matter of time till you run into one of these: Spoiler
While snorkeling in the Caymans during our last vacation, I looked over my shoulder and happened to see just such a beast swimming right towards me. Luckily, he was merely curious and just wanted to check me out. It was close to a 6 footer, because when he turned parallel to me he was as long as me. He slowly swam a complete circle around me, then moved off. I know they don't frequently attack swimmers, but I was still scared shit-less.
Same thing happened to me in the Caymans about 6 years ago. It was at least 4 feet long and came right at me and stopped about 8 feet away to check me out. Then it turned to swim away and I figured it would be a good opportunity to snap a picture of it with my underwater disposable. It heard the *click* and turned right back at me. Swam around me slowly, and then went off. All I was thinking was, "Fuck, that has nasty teeth. I hope it's not pissed." I don't think I took any more pictures of anything after that.
I specifically purchased a small waterproof video camera for this trip so I could record videos of the fish. Its bright red, with lots of chromed metallic bits. It could literally be a fishing lure. During my first swim out, I ran into a small 'cuda and video taped it for a bit. I thought that since there are obviously barracuda's here, perhaps I should do a little bit of research before going back into the water. Turns out I was pretty much a text-book example of what not to do around them. After that, I kept the camera in my pocket until I was ready to record the non-flesh-ripping fish, as I wanted to avoid this from happening: Those fish creep me out. The little 3-footers would follow me around like a dog.
The Komodo Dragon: second to none. What the article does NOT mention is that they have an average foot speed of 13 mph (20 kph), which is the average running speed of a human. And if you try to escape by climbing a tree, the younger ones will CLIMB UP AFTER YOU! They also have a longevity of 50 years, which is absurd for a lizard. So let's recap: a lizard as long as a car and big as an NFL nose tackle with over 50 bacteria in its spit can outrun, outclimb, and overpower you. Go fuck yourself, San Diego.
The world's most intimidating dog: the Perro de Presa Canario (Canary Dog), a brutally muscular dog bread for fighting with a bite more powerful than a Japanese Tosa and can stomp a pitbull flatter than a cheap pizza (it's the "Hound Of The Baskervilles Dog"). They grow to a minumum of anywhere from 85-170 lbs. Despite it's extremely ferocious appearence, these dog are often playful, loyal and good with kids with the right owner. I wouldn't want to cross one, though.
PREPARED TO BE TERRIFIED I posted these frightening bastards earlier, but once is simply not enough. Here is two dozen Japanese Giant Hornets killing over 30,000 honey bees (no, seriously). The acid they spit can dissolve human flesh and not even the ultimate insect hunter- the Praying Mantis, can beat them in a fight. Seriously, if you want the heebie-jeebies, gander at THIS shit (DAMN NATURE YOU SCARY):