The Blue-Ringed Octopuswhile beautiful is one of the most deadly creatures on earth, and resides primarily in Australia. These creatures come with fair warning as when agitated, their brown patches grow dark and bright neon rings appear in the middle of them. If you ignore it’s warning, this creature that’s smaller than your hand will release it’s toxin which can kill you within minutes. An individual will experience numbness, an impairment in their breathing, speaking and vision, vomiting, and abdominal pain. As the toxin doesn’t affect the brain, the individual will be completely aware of all of these symptoms before they go through the deterioration of voluntary muscle functions, and respiratory failure, leading to their death. Like most Australian animals, while terrifying and deadly, they will not attack unless threatened.
Wildlife photographer and scientist Danté Fenolio has a new book full of creatures that have evolved to thrive deep inside of caves, at the bottoms of oceans and underground. It’s called Life in the Dark and it comes out today. These are just a handful of the hundreds of the images in the book.
Some of the species in this book have never been photographed. Some (like the larval octopus at the top of this post) have never been described by science.
Günther’s Boatfish is a dragonfish with luminous spots called photophores along the length of its body.
The Golden Harlequin Toad is now extinct in nature thanks to the plague of amphibian chitrid fungus.
This bioluminescent mushroom is an undescribed species.
Waterfall Climbing Loach use their strong fins to crawl out of water and eat bacteria growing on rocks. This specimen was found in a cave in Thailand.
This cave house centipede was found in a Chinese cave.
The Square Pink Anthias lives in deep canyons near reefs called “drop-offs.” Weirdly, its bright colors aren’t visible at these depths - but its patterns are.
The candiru is a South American catfish that enter the dark gill chambers of other fish and eat their gills. They will haunt my nightmares forever.
Here’s a photo of Fenolio holding a giant Japanese Spider Crab (credit W. W. Lamar).
