Category: Invertebrates
These water dwelling, carnivorous animals are named for a type of flower, no doubt owing to their often colorful flower-like appearances and generally stationary lifestyle. They attach to the substrate with an adhesive foot called their “basal disc,” above which is their body column topped by an “oral disc” surrounded by stinging tentacles. Their diet consists mainly of small fish, shrimp, and other tiny aquatic organisms. With a few highly toxic exceptions, most anemones are harmless to humans. Many sea anemones form a facultative symbiotic relationship with certain single-celled algae species, benefitting from the byproducts of the alga’s photosynthetic processes.
Body horror in the insect kingdom
Learning about animals, you can discover many fascinating, even beautiful facts, but there are also things that can give you nightmares! Enter the strepsiptera (“twisted-wing parasite”). The adult female has no limbs, wings, or mouth - she simply lives in and feeds off her host (typically a wasp). When it becomes time to mate, she protrudes part of her abdomen from between the plates of her host and uses mind control to get the wasp to fly off to nearby males. Sexually mature males have wings, and fly around for about five hours before dying - spending their entire short existence seeking out females to mate with. After the female is impregnated, her own young grow and consume her. And once there is nothing left to eat, they leave their host wasp, infiltrate the nursery, and latch on to a larvae to create their own “zombie wasp” host and continue the grisly cycle!
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