Top 10 Animals with the Weirdest Behaviors

The Top Ten
1 Cuckoo

The cuckoo birds' approach to parenting is weird - they do not build a nest to lay their eggs in, but do so in other bird’s nests for them to look after their young.
The cuckoo birds lay or drop the eggs into the nest of another bird and once her eggs hatch, the female will attempt to drop the other species eggs out of their own nest.

Cuckoo birds are the reason why cuckoo clocks are invented.

2 Brown Trout

Female Brown Trout fakes an orgasm! Reason - to encourage males to ejaculate prematurely. A fake orgasm makes the male think he’s mated successfully when in fact he has failed.
Now, it's bizarre that fish have orgasms. And can fake them.

3 Elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae and the order Proboscidea, extinct relatives include mammoths... read more

They grieve, bury their dead and may visit gravesites regularly

4 Histiostoma Murchiei

Histiostoma Murchiei is a parasitic mite in the cocoons of earthworms.
The females can create husbands from scratch all by themselves because the females can lay eggs without needing fertilization. When the sons of a female grow up she copulates with them and the sons die shortly thereafter. After that, the female would be able to lay many more eggs which produce around 500 long-lived females - these new baby girls are actually fathered by their dead brothers...

I'm just going to say right now that I'm glad I'm human and not a newborn parasite destined to die by sexual intercourse at the hands of my own mother...

5 Flatworm

They are hermaphrodites, which means they can inseminate and be inseminated, but to decide who will be the male, they perform ‘penis fencing’. It's an act of battle because both want to be the male. The winner in the ‘penis fencing’ is the one who pierces the skin of the other and becomes the male.

Oh, and some of them have two penises...

In the image I added, you can see this ‘penis fencing’ ritual before mating (each has two penises - the white spikes on the undersides of their heads).

6 Pistol Shrimp

Aka snapping shrimp.
They spit bubbles at supersonic speed - the resulting sound is a sonic boom and the shockwave of bubbles is so powerful that can break glass and stun larger fish.
Also, the temperature of the shockwave instantly reaches that of the surface of the sun!
They shoot the bubbles and produce a loud snapping sound with one of the front claws that is larger - larger than half the shrimp's body (on the image, it's the long thing on the right end).
They have a pistol-like feature made of two parts - a joint allows the "hammer" part to move backward into a right-angled position. When released, it snaps into the other part of the claw, emitting an enormously powerful wave.

7 Adelie Penguin

Their mating ritual is like a Rock N Roll romance, literally.
1) the male penguin rolls a stone to the feet of the female to make it clear that the engagement has been offered
2) the female gives her approval by responding with a belly-to-belly mating song

8 Scorpion Fly

The males have to spit a lot for their life! Because the female tries to eat the male during or after mating. To save his life, the male has to spit sticky saliva onto leaves that the female eats - eating leaves distracts the female so she doesn't eat the male.

9 Human Humans (Homo sapiens) are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and large, complex brains. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, and language. Humans are highly social and tend to live in complex social structures composed of many cooperating... read more

It's obvious we are the weirdest, but obviously not in a bad way, in itself.
For instance we put things all on ourselves, make and carry clothes and other devices to live on, walk on two feet, and actively manipulate the environment around us.

Also while other animals do manipulate their environment or have degrees of self awareness we are the only one to love fire, chimps appear to be curious about it, other animals detest it usually, but humans have a weird fixation with fire and that is what caused us to survive and thrive.

10 Horned Lizard

They squirt blood out of their eyes as a defense mechanism

I think there are other lizards who can do that too.

The Contenders
11 Cows Cattle (Bos taurus) are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus Bos. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult males are referred to as bulls... read more

Cows face the same two directions when they eat - either north or south. And scientists still can't say why. Why cows hate facing east and west?

12 Naked Mole Rat The naked mole-rat, also known as the sand puppy, is a burrowing rodent native to parts of East Africa. It is closely related to the blesmols and is the only species in the genus Heterocephalus of the family Heterocephalidae.

1) They run as fast backwards as they can forwards in the dark, even when completely blind.
2) They don't feel chemically-induced pain, so they wouldn't notice if you spilled acid on their skin.
3) The queen mole rat pushes around other female mole rats to cause them stress, which releases hormones that make the other females unable to procreate.

13 Zebra Finch

The females lay larger eggs when the mate is unattractive! (most female birds lay smaller eggs when their mate is unattractive).
The female Zebra Finch lays a larger egg in order to give her little ugly finch-ling a better start in life (more nutrients and more room to grow) despite the father’s imperfections.

14 Camel A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back.

The whole Camel Family spit when upset - camels, llamas, some alpacas, and guanacos.
They spit stomach contents and saliva in the face of the annoyer.

"The Hump on My Back is packed with fat!

The Hump on My Back is packed with fat!

The Hump on My Back is packed with fat! "

15 Frigate Bird

During the breeding season / courtship males inflate their red throat pouch into a huge red balloon that can last for up to 30 minutes.

16 Sage Grouse

The male (in the image) has two gular sacs that it inflates to attract mates. They look like silicon boobs...

17 Deer Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the fallow deer and the chital, and the Capreolinae, including the elk, reindeer, the Western roe deer, and the Eurasian elk.
18 Cat The cat (Felis catus) is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal.
It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is often referred to as the domestic cat to distinguish it from the wild members of the family. A cat can either be a house cat, a farm cat or a feral cat; the latter... read more

My cat is certainly a strange one.

19 Raccoon The raccoon, sometimes spelled racoon, also known as the common raccoon, North American raccoon, northern raccoon and colloquially as coon, is a medium-sized mammal native to North America.
20 Seagull
21 Llama The llama is a domesticated South American camelid, widely used as a meat and pack animal by Andean cultures since the Pre-Columbian era.
22 Alpaca

They are from the Camel Family so they spit, too

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