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What is the WEEEIRdest life form currently inhabiting this planet?

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baby_mouse Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:08 PM
Original message
What is the WEEEIRdest life form currently inhabiting this planet?

I think butterflies.
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Connie_Corleone Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:08 PM
Response to Original message
1. freepers.
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baby_mouse Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:12 PM
Response to Reply #1
4. more repellant than weird IMO nt

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youthere Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:09 PM
Response to Original message
2. mimes.
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baby_mouse Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:13 PM
Response to Reply #2
5. Eep! n/t
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usedtobesick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:29 PM
Response to Reply #2
12. freeper mimes
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baby_mouse Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:38 PM
Response to Reply #12
16. :coldstareofterror:

MIMING WHAT?
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usedtobesick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:46 PM
Response to Reply #16
23. would it really matter?
Edited on Fri Jul-22-05 05:47 PM by usedtobesick
it would be like seeing a vampire/werewolf you know it's a bad thing even if it was sleeping. There was a Far side cartoon with three panels, the top panel was a shark with big teeth, the middle was a porcupine and the last was a freeper mime (ok a weird guy in a beanie) and it read "natures way of saying 'Don't touch'" it would work for this...
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jeff30997 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:11 PM
Response to Original message
3. Humans.
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A HERETIC I AM Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:25 PM
Original message
Agreed. Humans.....
I mean, the higher Apes and Dolphins don't have Mardi Gras costumes, do they? How many Chambered Nautilus's have ever injected Botulism into themelves? How many Yaks own more TVs than they can watch at one time? And you never saw a Chipmunk go and buy a pet rock, didja?


WELL, DIDJA???????
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xchrom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:34 PM
Response to Original message
15. it's humans.
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baby_mouse Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:38 PM
Response to Reply #15
17. Ok. Humans. nt
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zippy890 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:22 PM
Response to Original message
6. This one
Crimson-snouted iceborer of antartica



The red part gets warm when he's hungry, swims up under the ice where the penguins are, melts a hole, and down the hapless penguin goes - vicious little brute



:P
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baby_mouse Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:27 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. Yick!

I said weird, not terrifying!

Mind you, he is pretty strange...
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khashka Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:25 PM
Response to Original message
7. Cockroaches
I've been watching this little colony of them for a few weeks. Very very strange.... but I'm beginning to think they may be a superior life form.

Khash.
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Taverner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:27 PM
Response to Original message
9. ceoleocanths
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bicentennial_baby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:27 PM
Response to Original message
10. slime mold
Edited on Fri Jul-22-05 05:30 PM by bicentennial_baby
seriously.

"Slime molds have complex life cycles that may be divided into an animallike motile phase, in which growth and feeding occur, and a plantlike, immotile, reproductive phase. The motile phase is commonly found under rotting logs and damp leaves, where cellulose is abundant. It consists in the cellular slime molds of solitary, amebalike cells, and in the Myxomycota of a coenocytic (multinucleate) mass of protoplasm called a plasmodium, which creeps about by ameboid movement. Plasmodia often grow to a diameter of several inches and are frequently brightly colored. Both types ingest solid food particles using a process called phagocytosis (see endocytosis). They feed on living microorganisms, such as bacteria and yeasts, as well as decaying vegetation. Before entering the reproductive stage, a plasmodium moves to a drier, better-lit place, such as the top of a log. In the amebalike, or cellular, slime molds, up to 125,000 individual cells aggregate and flow together, forming a multicellular mass called a pseudoplasmodium that resembles a slug and crawls about before settling in a location with acceptable warmth and brightness.

In the reproductive stage the plasmodium or pseudoplasmodium is transformed into one or more reproductive structures called fruiting bodies, each consisting of a stalk topped by a spore-producing capsule that resembles the reproductive structures of many fungi. Eventually the cellulose-walled spores are released and dispersed; they germinate in wet places, releasing naked cells. In a typical plasmodial slime mold the germinated spores go through an ameboid or flagellated swimming stage, followed by sexual fusions and cell divisions. The diploid ameboid cell (i.e., the zygote) grows and its nucleus divides repeatedly, resulting in the formation of a new plasmodium. Under adverse conditions a plasmodium may be transformed into a hard, dry, inactive mass called a sclerotium. Resistant to desiccation, it becomes a plasmodium again when favorable conditions return.

In the case of the cellular slime molds, each spore released becomes a single ameba, which feeds individually until starving cells release a chemical signal that causes them to aggregate into a new pseudoplasmodium, and the process is repeated. In sexual reproduction two haploid amebas fuse, then engulf surrounding amebas, forming a single organism called a macrocyst. The macrocyst then undergoes meiosis and mitosis and releases haploid individuals.

There are about 65 cellular and 500 known plasmodial slime mold species, found in forests and sometimes lawns throughout the world. In a few species the plasmodium, under favorable conditions, may cover an area of several square feet. A slime mold is the cause of clubroot, a disease of cabbage and related plants."

http://www.answers.com/topic/slime-mould
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XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:28 PM
Response to Original message
11. any kind of parasite
but just for s***s and giggles, I'll say liver flukes.

Their whole life cycle is nothing short of freakish.
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MN ChimpH8R Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:29 PM
Response to Original message
13. The angler fish is pretty weird


and incredibly ugly

There's a bunch more horrific sea denizens at:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=19383
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Allenberg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:29 PM
Response to Original message
14. My cat Toona.
She seriously has some screws loose. :D
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Kraklen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:39 PM
Response to Original message
18. sea squirts.
They've gone "backwards."
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Wetzelbill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:41 PM
Response to Original message
19. Tom Tancredo
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baby_mouse Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:45 PM
Response to Reply #19
22. Who IS this guy?
Edited on Fri Jul-22-05 05:46 PM by baby_mouse
Soem other thread talked about him raving about that other twat muttering about bombing Mecca...
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Wetzelbill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 06:02 PM
Response to Reply #22
24. He's a congressman from Colorado
not the most sane person around. :)
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Sannum Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:41 PM
Response to Original message
20. Michael Jackson
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AntiCoup2K4 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 05:43 PM
Response to Original message
21. Treasonous neo-con shitbags?
The most vile are the ones who can camoflauge themselves as Democrats. They are known by their Latin name democratus leadershippus councilus
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RPM Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 06:03 PM
Response to Original message
25. BFEE.
.
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LynzM Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 06:05 PM
Response to Original message
26. Water bears
You can freeze them, boil them, dehydrate them for decades, and they stay alive. Weird, weird little buggers. Ah.... Animal Planet.
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seemunkee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 06:09 PM
Response to Original message
27. vampire squid
Turns itself inside out.

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I Know How To Do it Donating Member (499 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-22-05 06:12 PM
Response to Original message
28. Zombies
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