Animals With Superpowers (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

Environmental forces have motivated animals to creatively adapt in nature. From camouflage to agility to acute senses, some animals have managed to defy death, defeat predators, and rule their environment. Many animal abilities continue to leave experts baffled.

Here at HuffPost, we've decided to feature some animals with amazing superpowers, beyond the five senses humans possess. From venom power to the power to shock, be sure to vote for the animal that just seems out-of-this-world!

Anglerfish: Unusual Reproductive Power

Incapable of feeding themselves after they mature, male anglerfish must quickly seek out their mate by smell for their survival. After the male anglerfish finds a mate, he bites her skin. This releases an enzyme that dissolves his lips and her skin so they're connected at the blood level. He is then able to permanently attach himself to her, allowing him to obtain nutrients. He is also able to inject her with sperm when hormones in her blood signal that she's ready to release eggs.

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Comments

[Alice Rossignol]

06:41 PM on 11/30/2009

cool article! The same superhero concept happening at www.xspecies.wordpress.com

[Eleka bobV]

05:04 AM on 11/30/2009

Amazing!

[sassafra]

04:51 PM on 11/29/2009

bah, run-of-the-mill powers if you ask me. the human animal can use it's superpower of cognition to create machines to augment it's own abilities and grant virtually all of the powers listed in the slide show. even the anglerfish sounds remarkably close to the southern baptist church's thoughts of a woman's role in marriage.

[chaya]

09:21 PM on 11/28/2009

This is the wrong frogfish. Not only that, you didn't tell the whole story. Once the male has attached himself to a female--who is a giant, compared to him--he slowly gets absorbed into her body until he is little more than a pair of gonads.

[Doc0976]

09:50 PM on 11/28/2009

Thank you, Chaya! And quite a fitting end...

[MichaelMcKLA]

09:11 PM on 11/28/2009

I had NO idea that geckos could sell insurance.

[mamacat]

09:03 PM on 11/28/2009

Pretty amazing!!!

I read once about a reptile that has an eye that allows it to see things with much more accureacy than we do; its iris is shaped like an 'L'.

Octopi have green cupric blood, instead of red ferric blood, but only one fifth of the stamina that they would have with red blood.

The largest whales are the most massive creatures to have ever lived on Earth.

[TidalShadow]

03:12 AM on 11/30/2009

Octopus blood is actually blue, due to the copper-based hemocyanin that carries oxygen as opposed to iron-based hemoglobin. Hemoglobin has low efficiency in cold and low-oxygen environments, so octopi and many other invertebrates use hemocyanin instead. Some organisms that have hemocyanin based blood have blue blood, while others have green. I don't know why that is.

[Doc0976]

08:51 PM on 11/28/2009

Whatever it is, an angler fish or frog fish, I would hardly call that "unusual reproductive power." It's an unusual method maybe, but not a power.

The description I read reminds me of the kind of relationships my good friends call "marriage."

[yodaveg]

06:49 PM on 11/28/2009

The Slanted Fox can control the minds of of those who stare at it, yet cannot maintain its balance.

The Lipsticked Pitbull, native to Alaska, can allegedly see around the curvature of the earth. It is also the only known animal than can function without a brain.

The Duffing Tiger attracts the most beautiful mate, but cannot remain monogamous.

The Green Shark, found around the south end of Manhattan Island, will gorge itself until it's eaten all the other fish in the sea.

Isn't nature amazing!

[jan4insight]

09:53 PM on 11/28/2009

LOL! You should post this on the politics page :)

[TidalShadow]

03:06 AM on 11/30/2009

Amusing, but many animals are able to function without brains. Take those jellyfish for instance. Starfish and most other echinoderms also lack brains.

[yodaveg]

12:42 PM on 11/30/2009

Maybe, but at least they have feelings.

[brainpower]

06:48 PM on 11/28/2009

It always makes me shake my head when I hear people referring to human homosexuality as "unnatural". You only have to look at these examples to see how varied and adaptive natural really is.

[anthonytaurus]

02:01 AM on 11/29/2009

ummm.. homosexuality and reproductive process are two different things. you can't compare gay/lesbian sex to the reproductive methods of various animals. one is a social construct while the other is a biological construct.

sheesh. if you're going to get political, at least make sense. it's like you have the brain of a conservative and goals of a liberal. obviously, it doesn't work.

[KYZipster]

10:02 AM on 11/29/2009

That's right, like gay human beings in Iran, homosexuality in the animal kingdom does not exist.

[cheeseandsnark]

06:43 PM on 11/28/2009

These animals own! We should all bow down to the greatness of these amazing beasts.

[MrGovtCheese]

06:07 PM on 11/28/2009

It's time we hook them eels up to the fuse box.

[Seeker83]

06:01 PM on 11/28/2009

Wow, that is so amazing! The anglerfish attaches to its mate and lives off her bloodstream. Crazy!

http://www.stopanxietyhq.com

[MrE]

05:36 PM on 11/28/2009

"Environmental forces have motivated animals to creatively adapt in nature."
If this article appeared in the entertainment or comedy section, this sentence might be forgiven, but in the "green" section, it demonstrates a shocking lack of understanding of evolutionary forces. Environmental forces DO NOT motivate adaptability. Random mutations occur all the time, usually on an insignificant level. Significant mutations are usually defects and lead to the death of the individual organism. However, in rare cases that the mutation does not harm the organism AND IF that mutation provides an advantage to the organism to cope with existing conditions, AND IF that mutation can be passed on to the next generation, then over time the mutation may become more common, and eventually may become the standard of the species.
In short. Animals DO NOT mutate to adapt to changes. There is no direction, there is no purpose, there is no design, intelligent or otherwise. Mutations are completely random. If they are beneficial they may aid the species to adapt, but it is much more likely that when environmental forces change, species that are not already prepared to deal with the change become extinct.

[Proxy11]

08:52 PM on 11/28/2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptation

Mr. Peabody you are not.

[tayo65000]

04:43 PM on 12/01/2009

Teleonomy: The hypothesis that adaptations arise without the existence of a prior purpose, but by the action of natural selection on genetic variability.

From your own link. Read the article before citing it.

[HeRo22]

04:49 PM on 11/28/2009

It's a Frogfish, not an Anglerfish

[Jpwill]

03:23 PM on 11/28/2009

What about incredible shrinking sheep?

http://greenexplorer.ovi.com/getinspired/europe/honey-i-shrunk-the-sheep/