Mother nature is no stranger to unusual animals with equally unusual body parts. Some even appear to be perfectly fine on the outside, but upon closer

Mother nature is no stranger to unusual animals with equally unusual body parts. Some even appear to be perfectly fine on the outside, but upon closer inspection, you’ll quickly realize that things aren’t quite as they seem. Translucent skull, anyone? What about a second set of jaws or even four beating hearts. Yep, those are totally real as you will see in this list of animals with peculiar body parts. 1. Hagfish Despite its name, the hagfish actually resembles a pale and scaleless eel with a couple of antennae on its head. In fact, many people colloquially refer to it as a “slime eel” not only due to its soft and squishy texture but rather its ability to shoot up to 200 cups of slime in a single second whenever it feels threatened. So stay far away. But the strange body parts is the fact that this tiny creature has a total of four hearts, as well as fifteen sets of gills to supply its blood with the necessary amount of oxygen. Also, did we mention that it has two brains? 2. Moray Eel The moray eel is one feisty-looking creature, and its razor-sharp teeth and scary eyes certainly don’t help. These underwater beings are known to grow up to four feet in length, though some are said to measure a monstrous 13 feet. Now what truly sets the moray eel apart from others is its second set of jaws. You read that right. This is known as “pharyngeal jaws” and its purpose is to provide extra jaw strength or penetration power in order to increase the suction of its bite and draw the prey closer to its mouth. 3. Barreleye At first glance, the barreleye seems like your typical weird deep sea fish with a sleepy deep look on its face and two leaves stuck in its transparent head. But those things you mistook as eyes are actually its nostrils. And as for the leaves? Those are its eyes which are located in sockets that allow the barreleye to look straight up just as easily as forward. These fishes are known to live only a few hours after they’re brought to the surface, with the fragile skull getting destroyed in the process. 4. Larvacean The larvacean’s entire body is pretty weird. It’s not the fact that they look like tadpoles, or that they measure only four inches in length, but they inflate themselves into a three feet wide bubble filled with mucus. Gross, right? And they’re known to do so over the course of 45 minutes. This is basically a strange feeding habit so that the larvacean is able to consume small critters until the bubble gets clogged and then is forced to start all over the course of four hours. The larvacean’s bubble also contains ribbed walls that aid in filtration and chutes that reduce drag. 5. Long-Wattled Umbrella Bird Native to the Pacific Slope of the Andean Mountains, the long-wattled umbrella bird is sort of the opposite of a peacock’s majestic tail. You see, it has a really long wattle that measures anywhere from 15 to 20 inches on average. And, like peacocks, these birds are known to flare out the feathers on the wattle in a dramatic manner in order to attract its female counterparts during mating season. Long-wattled umbrella birds are currently listed as endangered in Ecuador since 2016, with less than 20,000 of them left in the wild.

Animals With the Most Peculiar Body Parts

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