There are lots of strange animals in the ocean. One of them is the mantis shrimp, an impressive ocean predator. There are up to 400 species of the mantis shrimp. They have distinctive red, green, and blue colors, making them exceptionally beautiful. However, you can categorize the shrimps into two species.

These groups are smashers and spearers3. Smashers have a claw shaped like a club, which they use to smash their prey, while spearers have a claw lined with plenty of sharp teeth. They incapacitate their prey by impaling them with these teeth.

Mantis shrimps have the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom. Their compound eyes have trinocular vision, giving them more depth perception than humans. Mantis shrimps can see a variety of light spectra, including those in the ultraviolet spectrum. They also have one of the most powerful blows in the animal kingdom. They attack their prey at 50 miles per hour, faster than a 0.22 caliber bullet.

The giant Chinese salamander is a critically endangered salamander species. It is the world’s largest amphibian. Chinese salamanders have an average length of 1 meter and weigh 11 kg. Their bodies are heavily built and flat, with short but sturdy limbs.

They can live for up to 60 years. The conservation status of giant Chinese salamanders is critically endangered. Researchers could only find 24 giant Chinese salamanders in the wild. Excessive hunting by humans caused an alarming decline in their population.

Another animal on our list of weirdest animals worldwide is the pink river dolphin. Originally born as a gray calf, the river dolphin turns pink as it reaches adulthood. Male river dolphins are usually more pink than their female counterparts. Researchers believe the males have more pink hue because they are aggressive towards themselves. 

Unlike other dolphins, the pink river dolphin can turn its head from side to side because of its separated spines. A river dolphin can grow as long as 8.5 ft. Also, it can move one of its flippers independently of the other. It improves the speed of their movement in water.

River dolphins have sensory hair on their snouts. It helps them locate prey in the deep sea. They also have two different types of teeth for various functions. The dolphin's front teeth are pointy and used to catch and hold their prey, while the back teeth are flatter. They use their back teeth to grind their food before swallowing. 

Their unique teeth formation allows them to feed on over 50 types of fish, freshwater crabs, and turtles. You can find the pink river dolphin in South America, specifically in the Amazon and Orinoco river systems.

Marine ecologist Kerryn Parkinson found the next animal on our list of weirdest animals in 2003. The blobfish is a deep-sea animal occupying the southeastern coast of mainland Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand waters. Blobfish won the ugliest animal online vote in 2013.  

The gelatinous fish has different anatomical functions from other fish species. It lacks skeletons or muscles. The fish’s body comprises a blobby substance with a lower density than water. It helps them stay flat above the sea floor. Half its body mass contains its head, large black eyes, a huge mouth, and a bulbous nose. 

Also, blobfish don’t have a swim bladder. It works to its benefit because it allows it to control buoyancy. It lives at sea depths ranging from 2000 to 3900 ft. The ocean at this depth has pressure 60 to 120 times greater than the sea surface. The lack of swim bladders prevents implosion at these depths. 

With its single closed circulatory system, it can grow up to one foot long. They have a slow reproduction rate and live up to 100 years.

Next on the list of weird animals is the red-lipped batfish. The red-lipped batfish has a lipstick-red pout and frog-like legs. You can only find it on the Galapagos islands. It prefers the sandy bottom of reefs or the ocean. You’ll find the fish species at depths of 3 to 76 meters in the Pacific oceans or around the edges of reefs 120 meters deep at Galapagos islands.

It is a terrible swimmer and often uses its fins as legs to walk around the sandy bottoms of the ocean. Apart from the bright red color of its lips, the blobfish’s body color is light brown, with a gray back and white stomach. 

It also has an appendage known as illicium on its head. Researchers think it uses it to lure prey in. It feeds on small fish, shrimp, and mollusks. Luckily, their conservation status is not threatened.

The next creature on our list of weird animals is Aye-aye. It is the world’s largest nocturnal primate native to Madagascar islands. The primate spends its days sleeping and its nights searching for food. 

One of its many weird features is its long, narrow middle finger. It uses it to tap on tree branches to get the grubs and insects under the tree branches. Aye-aye uses the percussive foraging method to search for food. 

It has rodent-like teeth for tearing at grubs and insects and bat-like ears it uses to pick up echoes in trees. Unfortunately, aye-aye is an endangered species.

The sea pig is a weird animal that looks very different from its name. It is not a pig that lives underwater. It is a sea cucumber. Sea cucumbers live in the bottom of the oceans. They have unique transparent bodies.  

You can’t observe sea pigs outside their natural habitat because they disintegrate into a pile of faux Jell-O once they reach 4,000 feet of the water’s surface. They also break apart easily when caught in a fishing trawler. 

Their poisonous skin protects them from predators. Sea pigs also have unique respiratory systems. They breathe through their anuses. We don’t know a lot about their conservation status because it is hard to study them outside their native habitat.

The bat-eared fox is one of the weird animals native to Eastern and Southern Africa. It is a small animal with ears that are over 5 inches long. Its body is sandy gray, with darker fur around the back of its ears, eyes, muzzle, feet, and the tip of its long, hairy tail. 

The carnivorous mammal can live up to 14 years. According to the conservation status on the IUCN list, there’s no threat of extinction. It relies on its fast speed to escape from predators.

The capybara is an adorable animal native to South America1. They are semi-aquatic animals found in habitats with easy access to water. Capybaras are the largest rodents in the world. It weighs between 35 kg and 65 kg and weighs about 1.2 meters. 

They have reddish brown coarse fur, but it turns yellowish brown on the belly. Their hind legs are longer than the front legs, and they have partially webbed feet. Capybaras feed on aquatic soft plant parts, grasses, bark, and fruit.

The helmeted hornbill is one of the weirdest animals common in Southeast Asia. The bird has black wings with white tips, a black back, a white belly, and white legs. Its most bizarre feature, wrinkled throat patch, is creamy white in females and deep scarlet in males. 

It has a casque on its upper jaw. It is different from other hornbill species. Its casque is harder and heavier and used for combat. It uses its helmet to fight for territory and foraging. Helmeted hornbills fight by ramming their casques together like a big-horned ram. The winner accesses rare nesting cavities and figs from their favorite trees.