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Top 10 Deadliest Animals

environment environment - 2 years ago

Poison Dart Frog






 



These pint sized frogs aren?t for kissing. Their backs ooze a slimy neurotoxin that is meant to keep predators away. Each frog produces enough of the toxin to kill 10 humans.



Cape Buffalo






 



When faced with a predator, cape buffalos charge head on. That?s 1,500 pounds of beast topped off with two big, sharp horns. You?re lucky if there?s only one ? the real danger comes when a herd of thousands stampedes in your direction.



Polar Bear






 



Sure they might look cuddly at the zoo, but in the wild they eat elephant seals for breakfast. Get between one and its cub and it could easily rip off your head with one swipe of its giant paw.



Elephant






 



Not every elephant is as friendly as Dumbo. Elephants kill more than 500 people a year worldwide. African elephants generally weigh in around 16,000 pounds ? all the better to stomp you with ? not to mention their sharp tusks.



Australian Saltwater Crocodile






 



Don?t mistake this croc for a log! It can lay still in the water, waiting for passers by. Then, in the blink of an eye, it?ll lunge at prey, pulling it under water to drown and dismember.



African Lion






 



Giant fangs? Check. Lightning quick? That too. Razor sharp claws? You betcha. Hungry? You better hope not. These big cats are near perfect hunters.



Great White Shark






 



Blood in the water can excite these sharks into a feeding frenzy, where they?ll use all 3,000 of their teeth to bite anything that moves.



Australian Box Jellyfish






 



Also known as the sea wasp, this salad-bowl sized jellyfish can have up to 60 tentacles each 15 feet long. Each tentacle has 5,000 stinging cells and enough toxin to kill 60 humans.



Asian Cobra






 



While the Asian Cobra doesn?t hold the title of most venomous snake, it does the most with what it has. Of the 50,000 deaths by snakebite a year, Asian Cobras are responsible for the largest chunk.



Mosquito






 



Most skeeter bites just make you itch. But some mosquitoes carry and transfer malaria causing parasites. As a result, these little pests are responsible for the deaths of more than two million people a year.



<a href="http://www.livescience.com/animals/top10_deadliestanimals-1.html /">LINK</a>











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Amazing Animal Abilities

flyaway flyaway - 2 years ago



Bats














 







Bats avoid obstacles and nab insects on the wing by emitting ultrasonic squeaks and interpreting the echo the sound waves make after bouncing off objects in the environment. This biological sonar, called "echolocation," is also used by dolphins to navigate murky waters.







Sharks














 







Never play hide-and-seek with a shark because you'll lose. Sharks have special cells in their brains that are sensitive to the electrical fields other creatures generate. This ability is so refined in some sharks that they can find fish hiding under sand by the weak electric signals their twitching muscles emit.







Boa














 







Temperature-sensitive organs located between the eyes and nostrils of boas and pit vipers allow the snakes to sense the body heat of their prey. There is one located on each side of the snakes' head, so the animals can perceive depth and strike with deadly accuracy even in complete darkness.







Hummingbirds














 







The eyes of insects and birds are attuned to wavelengths of light outside the visible range that humans see in. Birds that appear drab to us are often radiant in colors we don't even have names for when seen in near-ultraviolet light. Telescopes like Hubble make ultraviolet images, which are colorized by technicians so we can enjoy them.







Cats














 







Cats have a mirror-like membrane in the backs of their eyes that lets them hunt and move in almost complete darkness. Called a "tapetum lucidum," the membrane reflects light after it has already traveled through the retina, giving the eyes another chance to nab the photons as they make their second trip.







Snakes














 







A snake flicking its forked tongue might look ominous to us, but it's just the animal sniffing its surroundings. A snakes use its tongues to collect particles wafting in the air. The coated tongue is then dipped into special pits in the roofs of the snake's mouth, called Jacobson's organs. There, the odors get processed and translated into electrical signals that are sent to the brain.







Moths














 







For moths, the term "love is in the air" is something to be taken literally. The furry insects can detect chemical love signals, called "pheromones," emitted by the opposite sex from up to seven-miles away. Some studies show humans also detect pheromones, but the effect seems to require close encounters.







Rats














Most rats have poor vision, but they make up for it with the "whiskers on their snouts. They use the long hairs, also called "vibrissae," in the same way that blind people use canes. By whisking the hairs across objects the come across, rats and other rodents form mental pictures of their surroundings.










Drum Fish














 







Some fish like this drum fish "hear" using their air bladders. The bladders detect sound vibrations and relay them to the inner ear via a set of bones in the middle ear called the "Weberian apparatus." Hair cells in the inner ear respond to the vibrations and transmit the sound information to the fish's brain.







Migratory birds














 







Many birds, especially those that migrate, can use the "Earth's magnetic field to stay their course during long flights. Scientists still aren't sure how they do it, but one recent study suggests birds might have a form of synesthesia that lets them "see" the planet's magnetic lines as patterns of color or light that is overlaid on their visual surroundings. Humans must rely on familiar landmarks or the sun's position to locate North, and many can't even manage that.







LINK




























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