- That’s okay, we didn’t want to sleep tonight anyway.
Nature has created some truly twisted creatures to plague our nightmares. It’s particularly easy to find if you look into the oceans.
But it’s not like things are much better on dry land. There are some absolutely horrific creatures crawling around the planet’s surface, be they mammals, insects, birds, or reptiles.
Here are X of the creepiest animals that you could run into without taking a dip. Some of them are perfectly harmless, but that doesn’t make them any less scary-looking.
1) Coconut Crabs
The coconut crab looks like something that should live in the deepest oceans, never to see daylight. But these behemoths that can grow to be three feet wide and a foot long are the largest living land invertebrates.
Not that they’re limited to crawling on land. They can just as easily climb trees, rocks, or walls.
For food, they eat pretty any flesh they can find. Rats, chickens, and even cats are all fair game to the coconut crab.
They have absolutely no problem tearing chunks out of their prey, either. Their oversized claws pack as much force as the bite of a bear.
Fun fact, it’s possible that the crabs ate Amelia Earhart after she crash landed on a Pacific island.
2) Babirusa
The babirusa is a kind of a wild pig that lives in Indonesia. The females look pretty much like any wild boar, but the males have a serious dental problem.
Many species in the pig family sport impressive tusks, but the babirusa is by far the creepiest. First of all, the males’ tusks grow upwards, pushing through the skin on the top of its snout.
Like with most pigs, the tusks never stop growing. The babirusa males must constantly wear them down by fighting other males.
If they don’t, the backwards-curving tusks will eventually penetrate into the babirusa’s skull and kill it. What a way to go.
3) Atretochoana eiselti
Atretochoana eiselti is one revolting creature. This thing looks like a disembodied 30-inch penis that crawled away from its owner.
Just looking at it, you’re probably not surprised that it’s nicknamed the penis snake. But despite it’s elongated, legless appearance, it’s actually an amphibian.
This lungless wonder isn’t a complete land animal, since like its lungless salamander relatives, A. eiselti needs water to live. But there’s enough creepy s*** in the seas that we’re putting this dong worm on this list.
4) Shoebill Stork
The shoebill stork is not a pretty bird. In fact, with its dull gray color and bizarre beak it looks downright evil.
These five-foot-tall birds don’t really do anything to negate that first impression, either. Their hunting method is unnecessarily gruesome.
When the shoebill spots a prey animal, it plunges to the ground with its beak wide open to trap the unfortunate creature whole. It then moves its sharp-cornered beak around the animal’s neck and slams it shut, decapitating the prey.
Thanks to their huge size, shoebills can prey on anything the size of a young crocodile and smaller. Oh, and their mating call sounds like machine gun fire.
5) Naked Mole Rat
The naked mole rat is what happens when the nature just stops caring and makes the most off-putting creature ever. First of all, just look at it — it looks like a testicle grew a head, legs, tail, and weird rodent teeth.
Not only that, at some point a naked mole rat saw a bee and thought, “I want to live like that.” They live in colonies where borderline blind and mindless workers sever one single queen rat.
Like a bee or ant queen, the rat queen constantly produces offspring fathered by one to three males. And just like their insect role models, naked mole rats share a sort of hive mind.
On top of all that, naked mole rats don’t feel pain — they literally don’t have nerve receptors for it. They’re also extremely resistant to cancer and can live for up to 32 years.
6) Aye-Aye
The aye-aye is a regular nominee for the ugliest creature on the planet, and for a good reason. It looks like a demon decided to possess a deformed teddy bear.
They have creepily long, skeletal fingers that they use to dig grubs and bugs out of trees. But, despite their looks, the aye-aye is completely harmless.
Try telling that to its neighboring Malaysian communities, though. The aye-aye is so heinously ugly that the locals believe it to be an omen of misery, ill fortune, and death.
As such, some communities in Malaysia will kill aye-ayes on sight. As a result, combined with deforestation, the hideous animals are currently highly endangered.
7) Tarantula Hawk
Despite its name, the tarantula hawk is a wasp. And there’s nothing good or nice about this hellspawn.
To begin with, tarantula hawks are big — about two inches long. Although they rarely sting people, their sting is ranked as the second most painful sting out of any insect.
But if this thing decided to sting you, you’re still getting off easier than tarantulas. The tarantula hawk’s procreation ritual is straight out of a horror movie.
When a female tarantula hawk is ready to lay eggs, it will go find, surprise, a tarantula. Giving it a good sting, the wasp paralyzes the spider and drags it back to its nest.
Then, the female lays its eggs into the tarantula and buries it alive. When the eggs hatch, the larvae begin to gorge themselves on the still-living spider’s insides, purposefully avoiding its vital organs to keep it alive several weeks.