Oct 14, 2015 10:00 AM

Gallery: Absurd Creature of the Week's Goofiest-Looking Critters

VWPics/AP
01
Oceans
If there's one thing the scientist I interviewed about the chimaera wanted me to know, it's that the creature [doesn't have a penis on its head](https://www.wired.com/2015/04/absurd-creature-of-the-week-chimaera/). The male does, however, have a special structure that may help him grasp females. Also, that nose? It's packed with sensors that pick up the electricity its prey gives off.
De Agostini Picture Library/Getty Images
02
Platybelodon sp, Gomphotheriidae, Miocene
It's a good thing *Platybelodon*, an ancestor of modern elephants, lived millions of years ago because humans would have laughed right in its spork face. Those modified tusks may have helped the [creature scrape bark off trees](https://www.wired.com/2013/10/absurd-creature-of-the-week-spork-elephant/).

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI)
03
Histioteuthis heteropsis (Cockeyed squid)
You're looking at the strawberry squid, which has [one giant eye and one much smaller one](https://www.wired.com/2015/08/absurd-creature-week-squid-looks-like-bee-stung-eyeball/). Why? They've evolved to pick up different kinds of light: For the big one, it's trained on prey swimming above; for the other, it's trained on bioluminescent creatures below.
Hannah Wood
04
jaws
The assassin spider has an elongated "neck," atop of which sits its eyes but also [huge jaws it uses to keep its prey at a safe distance](https://www.wired.com/2014/12/absurd-creature-of-the-week-assassin-spider/). Weirder still, its mouth is down there where the legs are.

Dante Fenolio/Getty Images
05
GettyImages-128539839
Where to begin with the Surinam toad? Well, it's weirdly flat like this because it's doing its best impression of a leaf. And if you're lucky, you'll find a female with a pockmarked back–the eggs she's embedded in her skin. When the young hatch, they erupt out of the skin in an [unsettling fashion](https://www.wired.com/2013/12/absurd-creature-of-the-week-the-toad-whose-young-erupt-from-her-skin/).
Mark Conlin/Oxford Scientific/Getty Images
06
GettyImages-135624383
Ah, the ocean sunfish. At 10 feet long and 5,000 pounds, it's the [biggest bony fish on Earth](https://www.wired.com/2013/12/absurd-creature-of-the-week-3/). Also, it looks like a swimming face. The sunfish is actually related to the pufferfish, but its ancestors long ago headed out into the open ocean because who are you to say they couldn't. (Recent sunfish development: Check out [this giant one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SpxY5OLLxc) caught on camera off Portugal.)

Frans Lanting/Mint Images/Getty Images
07
GettyImages-148309465
Life is tough for the naked mole rat. First off, being naked all the time [isn't as fun as it sounds](https://www.wired.com/2014/09/absurd-creature-of-the-week-naked-mole-rat/): The rats, which live in subterranean societies, have to huddle together for warmth. But the upside is that the naked mole rat's stretchy skin, which probably evolved to help it better squeeze through burrows, is packed with a starch that seems to make them immune to cancer.

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